Project Portugal 2030

Summary

The use of plastics by the food packaging industry has been increasing, despite global initiatives to reduce consumption and carbon emissions. More than 135 million tons of single-use plastics are still discarded, and of those only 9% are recycled. [4] The use of natural feedstocks with comparable performance and processability to fossil plastics can be a viable strategy to meet the current environmental demands. A transition that the 3SPACK project aims to contribute through the development of new biobased and biodegradable starch-based blends with improved functional properties, such as water barrier and antimicrobial properties. Such functional properties will be attained by the addition of suberin extracts isolated from cork powder residues. The benefits of suberin extracts on the improvement of water vapor barrier of cellulose-based coating films for pharmaceutical packaging, were already been validated. [19] Also, the antimicrobial behaviour of suberin films was also validated. [20] Thus, it is expected that the addition of suberin extracts to starch-based blends will exhibit the same behaviour, and overcoming one of the major drawbacks of starch-based blends, its hygroscopicity. At the same time, it will avoid the need to add biobased essential oils to guarantee the desired antimicrobial feature. [5] Looking at the actual state of the art, when searching in ScopusTM & WoS databases, there are a high number of studies concerning suberin (ca. 1914). Then, combining with studies involving the development of suberin-based blends, only 2 appear [21,22]; narrowing down to active packaging, only 1 emerges. [21] Such study reported the development of furan-based polyester and suberin extracts to yield an innovative smart packaging system. Improved flexibility and antibacterial activity were attained owing to the presence of suberin extracts. [21] The 3SPACK project will generate relevant and novel knowledge about sustainable materials for food packaging industry. For that, the following S.M.A.R.T objectives were defined: (1) to isolate suberin extracts from cork powder residues using an alkaline hydrolysis procedure, combined with mechanical grinding; (2) to prepare suberized starch-based blends formulations; (3) to categorize the processability of starch-based blends according to their rheological behavior; (4) to produce 3SPACKaging prototypes with similar performance of those obtained by polypropylene (PP) food grade. As a consequence of a successful achievement of the defined objectives, the following direct outcomes are predicted: (i) valorization cork powder residues with low granulometry not feasible to the production of typical cork composites; (ii) extraction of value-added compounds from cork powders residues; (iii) incorporation of suberin extracts on the development of novel suberized starch-based blends; (iv) evaluation of suberin extracts influence on the barrier properties and antimicrobial activity of the developed blends; (v) production of suberized, sustainable and smart materials for food packaging. The innovative character of 3SPACK allied with the current challenges of the food packaging industry will contribute profoundly to the current state of the art and hopefully, it will impact our society and our planet.