BIOBOARD, bio-degradable barrier for paper and board

The non-profit limited liability consortium LUCENSE is partner in the BIOBOARD project (funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Spanish Innovació i Reserca Industrial i Sostenible), whose goal is the development of technological extrusion coated paper&board products made from renewable raw materials and food industry waste, so as to increase the potential for recycling of food and beverage packaging.

The project is based on previous research, which revealed that coating based on whey protein may provide a bio-degradable barrier able to replace existing plastic coatings in multilayer packaging, improving recyclability.
To this end, a material for coating paper and board and more in general for coating cardboard packaging for solid and liquid food products is under development, capable of offering a performance similar to that of conventional PE in terms of food protection.
A reminder currently 40-50% of the 50 million tons of whey, produced each year in Europe as a byproduct from the production of cheese, is discarded; still within the EU, about 65,000 tons of protein powder and 140,000 tons of dried potato pulp are generated during the production of starch that may be open to new forms of exploitation.