»MouldPulp«: New biocomposites from bioplastics and pulp fibres

Term: 01.2011 - 12.2013

The Swedish company Innventia together with an industrial consortium has developed a promising wood-polymer material from cellulose pulp and PLA. During autumn, this material is to be launched by Södra under the name DuraPulp®. The material is renewable, shows good mechanical properties, a perceived naturalness, nice tactile properties and can be dyed with clear colours. The DuraPulp® material to be launched by Södra will be in the form of composite pulp bales, to be further processed by various techniques into final products. One limiting factor though is that there today is no industrially viable production process available for producing the DuraPulp material into granules for injection moulding.

The research project »MouldPulp« intends to change this. The aim of the 3-year research project is the development of a processing technology that allows making injection moulded parts out of DuraPulp® but keeping the naturalness material identity. A multidisciplinary and international team from Sweden, Finland and Germany led by Fraunhofer UMSICHT is working on this. The nova-Institut is responsible for market analyses, techno-economic assessments and dissemination.

Link of the project: http://www.mouldpulp.com

Contact:

Janpeter Beckmann
nova-Institut GmbH
Chemiepark Knapsack
Industriestraße 300
50354 Hürth
Deutschland


Tel. +49-(0)2233-48 14 57

Fax +49-(0)2233-48 14 50

E-Mail: janpeter.beckmann@nova-institut.de