Searching for New Polymeric Materials
The vast majority of plastics employed for packaging are designed for performance and durability, but not for degradability or recyclability. This, combined with the short lifetime of packagings, is leading to a tremendous growth of disposed plastics ending in landfills and oceans.
A transition from the current linear to a circular plastic production model is possible.
Biodegradable polymers based on ester linkages can be envisaged as part of this solution. These materials have the advantages of being bio-sourced and enzymatically or hydrolytically degradable, however their low permeability and/or poor mechanical properties limit their current use for packaging applications.
NATURE Workplan
NATURE brings together academic and industrial expertise in the fields of organocatalysis, biobased polymer production and chemical recycling to develop knowledge for the synthesis of new materials for packaging, where the polymers are not only designed based on their performances but also on their recyclability.
