Demonstration of the production of bioplastics from hardwood leftovers for high value compostable biobased products

Introduction

The use of lignocellulosic feedstocks from EU agroforestry is a promising, sustainable, and eco-friendly approach towards the production of biodegradable and compostable bio-based materials. The access to economically and environmentally sustainable feedstock from agroforestry residues could positively contribute towards the decarbonization of the bioplastic industry.

Challenges in Production

The development of downstream processes to obtain intermediate products (lignin and sugars) from lignocellulosic feedstock with the purity required for market introduction is challenging.

Purification of Sugars

The obtention of purified fermentable sugars requires specific pretreatment to first separate the sugars from the lignin. Then, it is necessary to obtain a grade of fermentable sugars that is suitable for industrial fermentation processes.

Lignin Processing

Regarding lignin, challenges remain in terms of the appropriate methods to produce specific grades of lignin with improved compatibility in their processing with thermoplastic biomaterials.

Project Objectives

The project will address the optimization of these biomaterial formulations to allow processing with standard processes used for conventional plastics (i.e., extrusion coating, thermolamination, blown film extrusion, injection moulding) to develop innovative bio-based and compostable plastic products with high replication potential. The following goals will be pursued:

1. To optimize the productivity of 1,4 bio-BDO and biopolyesters to increase the cost-effectiveness of industrial bio-based and compostable plastic products.
2. To develop new biomaterial formulations using sugars and lignin from hardwood leftovers, able to be further processed into industrial bio-based and compostable plastic products.
3. To demonstrate at an industrial scale the bio-based biodegradable and compostable plastic products, producing:
   • 30 tons of compostable and repulpable paper coupled thermoformed food trays,
   • 28 tons of compostable bags for OFMSW collection,
   • 3,000 dehumidifiers with a total weight of 800 kg.