Upcycling food and agricultural waste into biodegradable packaging materials

Plant polysaccharides from food and agricultural waste constitute the main source of renewable and biodegradable polymers (or polymeric networks). The growth in the use of plastics has brought millions of tons of plastic accumulation in the oceans and landfills and it is therefore paramount to design renewable-based biodegradable materials with adequate permeability and mechanical properties. This project aims at understanding the supramolecular structure of food and agricultural by-products (e.g. cell wall-rich pomaces and skins), the isolation of valuable polysaccharides, the investigation of their molecular architecture, and their performance as food packaging materials. The focus of this project is in the identification of building blocks (isolated or as part of a plant tissue matrix) for the design of packaging materials that will close the loop of circularity in a post-fossil fuel economy.

Funding: Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond (AUFF)-Starting Grant