The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), through the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid (ICMM) and the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (ICP), is participating in a new European project that will develop sustainable plastic alternatives based on strawberry waste. The project has received 4 million euros in funding through the Pathfinder Challenger grants.

“Faced with the challenge of creating food-based bio-packaging, our proposal is to develop packaging from highly perishable fruits, such as strawberries,” explains Eva Maya, researcher at ICMM-CSIC and project coordinator at CSIC, an entity under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

The research teams will simulate an ecosystem in which everything is reused.

“We start with strawberry waste to create our raw materials, from which we will produce the molecules that make up the packaging,” Maya said.

The project involves creating packaging for strawberries once they reach the market, including the pads used inside the packaging, and also the ‘mulching’ plastic used in strawberry cultivation. Furthermore, the project will develop pharmaceutical packaging where aluminum will be replaced by the new bio-based material.

The project, titled ECOSYSTEM, will also focus on strategies for reusing the bio-packaging once it has been used.

“We will study its recycling, biodegradation, and reuse systems,” Maya said.

Throughout the process, three innovative and sustainable technologies will be employed: biorefinery, mechanochemistry, and white biotechnology.

The Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry will be responsible for the biorefinery component. The team led by researcher David Martín Alonso will process the strawberry waste to extract raw materials: cellulose, lignin, and furfural. 

In the next phase, some of these raw materials will go to ICMM, where molecules will be created using mechanochemistry.

“This is a new technology that doesn’t use heat or solvents, so it consumes much less energy and is also very fast,” Maya said. The molecules will then be used to manufacture the new packaging.

At the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid, a new type of pad for strawberry packaging will also be developed. Current pads only absorb moisture, but the team will create one that is antioxidant, antibacterial, and prevents the production of ethylene—the gas that fruits emit when they begin to ripen and which causes strawberries to spoil quickly.

Additionally, ICMM will work on end-of-life solutions for the packaging material, aiming to transform used packaging into catalysts—substances capable of “transforming one thing into another. Depending on the nature of the catalyst, we will determine which reactions it can be used for,” Maya adds.

The project is led by the Spanish foundation Funditec and includes participants from Spain (CSIC, the Valencia Institute of Plastics Technology (AIMPLAS), and the company Kneia), Italy (University of Ferrara and Agricola2000), Switzerland (TEMAS Solutions), Denmark (Danish Technological Institute), and Greece (Mountain Berries).