The European collaborative project AFTERLIFE has come to an end. In the project, focused on the purification of wastewater from food industries and the recovery and revaluation of compounds of interest, one of the main functions of Lurederra has been to formulate commercially viable thermoplastic materials based on PHA produced from the compounds recovered from wastewater.
To this end, Lurederra followed the principles of circular economy and zero waste, developing formulations that would solve the main mechanical limitations of PHA that hinder its commercial use. Copolymers and additives capable of achieving greater ductility and increasing their thermal stability in the melt have been selected without compromising the excellent barrier properties and PHA degradability. In addition to the formulation, work has also been done on optimizing the processing of thermoplastic materials based on PHA, both on a small and large scale.
The project, framed in the call for bio-based industries within the Horizon 2020 framework (H2020-BBI-JTI-2016), has been coordinated by IDENER. It has had a duration of 4 years, with an extension of 6 months until February 2022, granted due to the delays derived from the restrictions related to COVID-19. 14 partners from 7 different countries have participated, coming from different fields such as food production or research in biology, packaging, bioplastics, wastewater purification, etc., which has allowed a broad approach to the project and led to satisfactory results.