ECLIPSE · RENEWABLE ECO-FRIENDLY POLY(LACTIC ACID) NANOCOMPOSITES FROM WASTE SOURCES

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a compostable polymer derived from renewable food-derived sources (mainly starch and sugar beet) and possesses the highest potential for a commercial major scale production of renewable packaging materials. Since PLA is compostable and derived from sustainable sources, it can be envisaged as a promising material for the reduction of the enormous societal problems associated to solid waste disposal.ECLIPSE promotes a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to packaging, via the use of waste derived materials unrelated to fossil fuels and to the food chain. The main objective of ECLIPSE is to revalorize waste-derived products (algae biomass waste and plant and crustacean wastes) into novel packaging materials. The ECLIPSE approach intends to revalorize waste materials for the production of an algae-derived PLA matrix. In addition, ECLIPSE also seeks to reinforce such PLA matrix with functionalized nanofillers extracted from non-edible banana plant, almond shell and crustacean shell wastes. This project aims at decreasing both the production costs of both poly(lactic acid) and algae biodiesel, by increasing the added value of algae waste via its revalorisation into the production of lactic acid.To this purpose, the industrial partnership was designed to combine leading companies to supply the raw materials involved in the project, namely algae (ALGAENERGY), lactic acid (GALACTIC), PLA (FUTERRO), banana waste (BANACOL) and seafood waste (ANTARTIC), with sound research groups active on biopolymers and nanoparticle functionalisation and dispersion (UMONS, CIDETEC, FRAUNHOFER, LTU, UPV/EHU, UPB, PUC) and a global end user with multiple plastic packaging converting facilities. This consortium includes 9 partners from European institutions and 4 partners from South American SICA countries, all of them experts in their respective fields.