The objective of NEWPACK is to validate in industrial setting the production of at least two new bio-plastics based on PHB- PLA blends with improved sustainability performance, obtained by the addition of natural extracts with antioxidant/antibacterial properties and nanoadditives from cellulose and chitin. A new circular economy value chain will be generated from agro-food wastes that will be exploited for the production of PHB, while designing and validating the process up to pilot scale. Blending of PLA and PHB will be validated at pilot scale to achieve specific final product requirements based on targeted products. New bioplastic properties and functionalities will be achieved through incorporation of nanocellulose or nanochitin additives (to improve typical problems of processability and mechanical properties of PLA-PHB), antioxidant and antimicrobial additives. The ability to extend the functionalities will be validated in real industrial environments. NEWPACK activities are underpinned by the prior experience and results (already validated at TRL 3-4) of the partners in order to achieve advanced TRLs (5-6) for the developed technologies, including PHB production from potato peels/sweet corn residues; co-blending of PHB with PLA; nanocellulose extraction from wheat straw and incorporation into PHB-PLA blends and encapsulation of natural antioxidants/antimicrobials for addition to PHB-PLA. Great emphasis will be on assessing technical and economic feasibility of the processes; demonstrating the biodegradability of solutions; ensuring the compliance to the market and regulatory requirements; LCA evaluation; preparing for future scale-up of the processes to achieve a pre-industrial production and identification of stakeholders perceptions, attitudes and expectations towards bioplastics. The NEWPACK consortium has 13 partners with academic research organizations and small and large industries which cover the whole innovation, production and final use value chain.

VOLATILE aims in the development of an innovative Volatile Fatty Acids Platform for the bioconversion of municipal solid bio-waste fraction and sludgy biowaste from other industries. The platform will be integrated in anaerobic digestion. The volatile fatty acids will be recovered continuously using sophisticated membrane technology and will be provided as feedstock / carbon source for value added fermentation approaches such as biopolymer PHA to be tested in material applications, single cell oil as precursor for oleochemical industry as well as long chain unsaturated health-promoting Omega-3 fatty acids to be used as food ingredient or nutraceutical. PHA will be obtained by bacterial fermentations, single cell oil from yeast cultivation and Omega-3 fatty acids via heterotrophic microalgae. The process development will be accompanied with sophisticated LCA study in order to ensure environmental friendly process design. The project will also work on solutions to typical barriers beside others such as quality requirements, continuous and sufficient feedstock supply or interaction between members of value chain using agent-based modelling. Also the effect of legal stimuli and restrictions and subsidies and taxes will be studied and a link between product requirements and markets will be established. VOLATILE will prepare a Roadmap indicating future research needs but also giving suggestion for legislative improvements. A CEN workshop will be initiated to discuss with external stakeholders rules for the VFAP & to set up standard requirements in the form of a CEN workshop Agreement.