BioICEP

The project’s goal is to show a sustainable route to a Circular Economy for Plastics by developing an advanced energy, carbon, and cost-efficient waste plastic biotransformation into high market demand bioproducts and bioplastics.

BioICEP brings together leading experts from industry and academia in order to achieve the following objectives:

1. Development of accelerated high-efficiency biodegradation incorporating microorganism communities expressing at least three novel and improved enzymatic activities enabling the degradation of mixtures of plastics
2. Sustainable degradation of at least 20% of mixed plastics
3. Bioprocessed high value bioproducts including equivalent bioplastics valorizing mixed plastic waste
4. Sustainable prototype system plan, paving the way to bring the developed solution to the market, fulfilling current needs, future expectations, and delivering a seamless bio-innovative route for a circular economy for plastics

The participating countries have been selected to represent different mixed plastic pollution environments, with specific partners selected which have the expertise and facilities to carry out the necessary technical innovations.

Three innovative booster technologies are at the core of this solution accentuating, expediting, and augmenting plastics degradation to levels far in excess of those current achievable.

The approach is a triple-action depolymerization system where plastic waste will be broken down in three consecutive processes:

1. Mechano-biochemical disintegration processes, including a new proprietary sonic-green-chemical technology to reduce the polymer molecular weight of the base polymer to make it amenable to biodegradation
2. Biocatalytic digestion, with enzymes enhanced through a range of innovative techniques including accelerated screening through novel fluorescent sensor and directed evolution
3. Microbial consortia developed from best in class single microbial strains, which combined leads to highly efficient degradation of mixed plastic waste streams. The outputs from this degradation process will be used as building blocks for new polymers or other bioproducts to enable a new plastic waste-based circular economy

Logoplaste will be a contributor to the project, mainly in Work Packages 3 and 8, and will have the role to incorporate these new polymers and bioproducts, generated by the consortium partners, into biobased and biodegradable packaging solutions, validating its feasibility for market adoption.

The €5 million project, which will span four years, is led by Athlone Institute of Technology, a third level institute in the heart of Ireland with a significant expert knowledge base and strong industry connections. AIT, plus thirteen other partners from nine different European and Asian countries, will take part in the BioICEP project.

PROJECT PROFILE 

Project name| BioICEP – Bio Innovation of a Circular Economy for Plastics
Call| H2020-CE-BIOTEC-05-2019

Grant Agreement Number | Nº870292

Project Coordinator | AIT – Athlone Institute of Technology

Logoplaste Project Managers | Maria Eugenia Zacarias & João Leitão

Approval Date | 28.05.2019

Start Date | 01.01.2020    End Date | 31.12.2023

Total eligible cost| 268.564,00 EUR

European Union financial support| 268.564,00 EUR

BioICEP Project aims to demonstrate a seamless sustainable route to a circular economy for plastics by developing an advanced energy, carbon, and cost-efficient waste plastic biotransformation into high market demand bioproducts and bioplastics.