Aimplas transforms bird feather waste into foam for sustainable hydroponic crops

VALENCIA, July 27 (EUROPA PRESS) -

Aimplas, the Technological Institute of Plastics, is working on the development of new foams for sustainable hydroponic crops from bird feathers within the framework of the 'Unlock' project, an initiative that has received funding from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program of the European Union.

14 partners from 7 European countries collaborate in this project, coordinated by the Cidetec Foundation, in order to promote a sustainable circular bioeconomy, focused on the creation of new value chains from by-products that are normally discarded or little used, such as bird feathers. In this way, the development of rural areas and their economy will increase, the entity explains in a statement.

The main objective of this project is to design and demonstrate an economically and environmentally sustainable supply chain for a feather-based bioeconomy, in order to generate biobased functional materials for agricultural applications.

Unlock proposes the manufacture of bioplastics and biotextiles from the keratin of feathers, which offer properties that can provide new functionalities to the final product, such as a biodegradation capacity adjusted to the duration of the crops, contribution of organic nitrogen to the soil, no generation of waste at the end of its life cycle and a competitive cost.

Aimplas, together with the assistance of Terra Aquática, is in charge of the development and validation of one of the project's products, the foams for hydroponic crops. Hydroponics is a practice that allows growing vegetables directly in contact with the nutrient solution in a soilless environment.

Currently, polyurethane foams are the most common for this type of application due to their low density, low price, and good water retention. However, this material can contain harmful chemicals, is difficult to sterilize, and is a huge source of microplastics.

With the main purpose of "improving the environmental impact and the life cycle of the product", they highlight, Aimplas is working on solutions for 3 different types of applications among the variety of hydroponic culture media: cloning collars, oasis buckets and a alternative substrate format similar to perlite called "minidiscs".

These foams are composed of a combination of a bioplastic matrix, a foaming agent and feathers, previously treated by other project partners to extract their keratin.

Various entities collaborate in this project. Firstly, the Research and Technology Organizations include, in addition to Aimplas, the Spain-based Cidetec Foundation, which also acts as project coordinator, the Łukasiewicz Research Network-Institute of Biopolymers and Chemical Fibers and RISE Processum AB. In addition, the consortium includes the participation of seven small and medium-sized companies from various countries such as General Hydroponic Europe, Bioextrax AB, Bio-Mi drutvo sa ograničenom odgovornoču, TECNOPackaging, Farrelly