A new POCTEFA project has just been approved to employ sugar-based materials in Bioplastics.

The interregional collaborative project involves a multidisciplinary group of researchers from UPV/EHU and POLYMAT, the University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France), University of Zaragoza (Aragon, Spain) and the start-up company Polimerbio (Gipuzcoa, Spain).

The AcroBioPlast project will be coordinated by Prof. Alejandro J. Müller and Dr. Ali Abouzadeh from POLYMAT and UPV/EHU. Other co-investigators from POLYMAT and UPV/EHU include professors Manoli Zubitur and Agurtzane Mugica. The project will receive close to €1 million in funding from the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the Interreg POCTEFA program.

The AcroBioPlast project aims to promote research and innovation capabilities within the framework of sustainable development of the cross-border region and strengthen cooperation between research centers and companies to accelerate the biodegradation of bioplastics, turning them into value-added products in biomedicine. While excessive sugar consumption is associated with health problems in human nutrition, certain sugar-based compounds such as polysaccharides can indeed enhance bioplastic biodegradability and improve their application in biomedical applications. However, in industry, the incorporation of these natural sugar-based materials in the formulation of bioplastics is yet to be developed.