Aimplas project uses marginalized EU land to turn shrubbery into bioplastics

17 Oct 2022 --- Aimplas is developing bioplastics from the biomass of trees and shrubs for active packaging in cosmetics and absorbent litter for the pet industry. The research is conducted under the European BeonNAT Project – one of the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programs.

Aimplas’ plastics technology center will generate lactic acid and then polylactic acid (PLA) from fermentable sugars in biomass waste for use in packaging with active properties for cosmetics. The center is also working on the encapsulation of silica with essential oils to incorporate it into pet-absorbent litter.

Belén Monje, lead researcher for chemical technology at Aimplas, tells PackagingInsights that lactic acid and PLA have already been used in this field and are currently used in some commercial products.

“PLA is one of the most common biodegradable polymers available in the market and, for this reason, was selected,” she explains.

“Modern economies highly depend on plastics in Europe, and this contributes to the depletion of limited resources. Proving renewably sourced solutions in our target sectors (packaging and health) is of greatest relevance as they consume more than 40% of all plastic produced each year.”

The project will use shrubbery to produce bioplastics.Marginal land utilization
The biomass will be sourced from “marginal land,” which can be defined in different ways.

“Often degraded or naturally poor soil conditions and other physicochemical constraints are used as main indicators for explaining land marginality. In other cases, land marginality is also explained by specific socioeconomic conditions that make traditional land use unattractive,” explains Monje.

BeonNAT employs selected underutilized, marginal sites in Spain, Germany and Romania as test fields. “For quantifying the marginality of the chosen BeonNAT test fields, it was decided to assess the soil quality of each test site,” she continues.

“With the PLA packaging, we are optimizing now the production of pure L-lactic acid and the polymerization to produce PLA will be addressed next year, which will be used for the development of the cosmetic packaging.”

“We will then incorporate active substances based on essential oils that have been obtained from the same biomass species in a cascade biorefinery concept providing antimicrobial or antioxidant functionalities, she explains.”

Biodegradable boom?
While growing in market share, bioplastics are still a rarity in the plastics market, Monje explains.

“They can, however, provide advantages in terms of switching to renewable non-fossil feedstocks and end-of-life modularity, especially for those short-term single-use applications.”

Plastics, in particular packaging like bags, bottles and lids, account for 89-95% or roughly 8 million tons of marine litter and 17 million tons is irreversibly dispersed on land each year worldwide.”

“The PLA aimed to be produced will solve these two issues, being produced from renewable sources and finishing its life with a low impact because of its biodegradable profile. The valorization of biomasses underutilized nowadays to produce high-added value products in a cascade biorefinery concept can have a high impact on the packaging industry,” concludes Monje.

Last year, UK experts warned that misinformation on what constitutes biodegradability and compostability could lead to increased environmental pollution. Recently, Swiss scientists developed a method – potentially applicable to PLA – of accurately tracking polymer degradation in soil, something the researchers say could help industry avoid inadvertently greenwashing its products.

By Louis Gore-Langton

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