The new research project Be-UP is now underway to develop new renewable polymers for the production and use of biodegradable packaging throughout Europe.

Funded by €8.5m from the Horizon Europe programme, the Be-UP project aims to develop pioneering methods for the synthesis and industrial processing (extrusion, injection moulding, and thermoforming) of biodegradable packaging obtained from bio-based materials.

Coordinated by ITENE (Spain), Be-UP brings together a consortium of 17 private and public organisations from nine countries, with UniTS as the only Italian university present.

The companies involved include Novamont, Particula, Hybrid Catalysis, Isotech, Aptar Group, Imerys, Innotech (Grupo Lantero), and the laboratories Polinivo, Normec, Cebimat, FTPO, and IDENER. European Bioplastics and the Polymeris competitiveness cluster will ensure the amplification of Be-UP’s results, with the support of the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE).

Digital modelling to test biodegradable polymers

Be-UP will utilise biocatalysts and sustainable additives, while also integrating advanced multi-object digital modelling tools to achieve high technical performance, sustainability, and biodegradability of the polymers simultaneously.

The Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Trieste is involved in the project with a multidisciplinary team integrating biocatalysis, computational chemistry, and spectroscopy.

The research is being carried out thanks to a four-year grant of approximately €330,000, which has enabled the launch of a research contract and a doctoral scholarship.

New perspectives for bio-based materials

In recent years, the UniTS team has designed and enzymatically synthesised new bio-based polyesters.

Thanks to collaboration with Professor Monia Renzi’s ecology group at the UniTS Department of Life Sciences, this has also paved the way for rapid tests to assess the ecotoxicity and marine biodegradability of polyesters.

These studies open new perspectives for the rational design of environmentally sustainable polymers and demonstrate the importance of multidisciplinary collaborations in solving the complex environmental challenges facing science.

The results led to participation in the Be-UP project and were obtained thanks to two Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants (RenEcoPol and InterFACES) and through the PNRR – NextGenerationEU (ICSC – National Research Centre in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing, Spoke 7).

Testing biodegradability in real-life scenarios

At the end of Be-UP, packaging prototypes with a high technology readiness level (TRL7) will be built to validate the developed materials.

Their biodegradability will be assessed in various end-of-life scenarios, including both open natural environments and controlled conditions, and the UniTS team will develop computational models capable of correlating the polymer structure with their marine biodegradability.

This evidence-based approach will help improve the knowledge base for European regulations, support industrial competitiveness and accelerate the transition to a truly circular bioeconomy.

It will also directly contribute to several European action plans and strategies, such as the Plastics Strategy, the Single-Use Plastics Directive, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Packaging and Waste Regulation.