Norner participates in the OXYPOL project, a €2.4million pan-European endeavour integrating complementaryscientific excellence and market driven R&D competence of the seven academic, institutional and commercial project partners, aiming at making an impact on the biocatalysis-based bio-plastics production, with positive implications for the European bio-economy.  The project is funded by the European Commission through the European Research Area in Industrial Biotechnology Initiative(ERA-IB) that links academiaand industry from across Europe to address global challenges.

Project Description:

The project will develop bio-plastic from lignin-based building blocks to replace similar products produced by the petro-chemical industry, that will have positive effects on the environment by reducing CO2 and toxic chemical emissions.

Project title: Optimized laccase systems for high-value bio-plastics production from biomass

• Project Duration: 2015–2018 (3 years)
• Project owner: Sintef
• Programme: ERA-IB 5th Joint call, Grant no 14071

Project partners:

• Sintef (Norway)
• Fundación CIDETEC (Spain)
• Universidad de Oviede (Spain)
• Aberystwyth University (United Kingdom)
• University of Groningen (the Netherlands)
• Autodisplay Biotech GmbH (Germany)
• Norner Research (Norway)
• SCG Packaging (Thailand)

Additional information

• The bio-based plastics market is in rapid growth and new raw materials for polymer production are being sought after. Lignin is the largest available source of aromatic building blocks for bio-based aromatic derivatives, and its abundance, e.g. from the pulp and paper industry, makes it a highly interesting potential source for novel aromatic chemicals and polymer precursors that may be polymerized by chemical and biocatalysts. The OXYPOL project addresses the bio-based plastics value chain using biocatalysis for the degradation of lignin into aromatic building blocks and the subsequent controlled polymerization of these aromatic precursors into bio-based polymers. Together with seven partners from
• OXYPOL is a pan-European endeavour integrating complementary scientific excellence and market driven R&D competence of the totally 8 academic, institutional and commercial project partners, aiming at making an impact on the biocatalysis-based bio-plastics production, with positive implications for the European bio-economy. In particular, OXYPOL will enable more efficient, scalable, safer and more environmentally friendly bio-plastics manufacturing processes by targeting optimized, specific and cost-efficient biocatalysis both for precursor production and subsequent polymerization.

Norner project responsible: Siw Bodil Fredriksen

Link to web page: http://www.oxypol.eu/