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Advanced Manufacturing for Sustainable Biodegradable Microbeads, BIOBEADSAdditional information for applicants Investigators:Dr Janet L. Scott - Professor Davide Mattia - Professor Karen Edler - Background: Recently, much public attention has been focused on plastic microbead pollution originating from personal care and cosmetic products (PCCP). Manufactured largely from polyethylene, microbeads added to PCCP have been found to escape water treatment facilities, contaminating water bodies with non-biodegradable microplastics, which may have a deleterious effect on marine life. Organisms may directly ingest microplastics (beads may mimic fish eggs) and, microplastics can carry extra ‘chemical load’, including persistent organic pollutants. Estimates are that, in the UK alone, 680 t/y are used in PCCP with 18-86 t/y of plastic microbeads emitted to the environment from one exfoliant product type.4 Plastic microbeads will be banned for use in PCCP in the UK from early 2018 following an earlier ban in other countries, e.g. USA. Europe is likely to follow suit. Some alternatives are known, including particulate materials from plants (e.g. nutshells, oatmeal), waxes (e.g. jojoba ester; hydrogenated or esterified jojoba oil), but many do not offer the performance characteristics that the formulator and consumer have come to expect. Microbeads are also used in other products. In paint stripping using ‘plastic blasting media’, solid plastic particles are used to mechanically strip paints from surfaces, e.g. of aircraft. Volumes are large (>650 kg of plastic per plane stripped). Responsible facilities capture and recycle the particles, but reuse is limited by degradation after ca 10 cycles.8Hollow polymer microspheres/capsules and porous microsponges are also widely used as fillers in polymer products and some paints and coatings, and for delivery of perfumes or active ingredients, in household cleaning and laundry products. While these have yet to attract attention relating to plastic pollution, it would be desirable, in the pursuit of more sustainable products, to prepare such “shell” structures from renewable, ultimately biodegradable, materials as these hollow spheres (or remnants thereof) will also be emitted to the environment. This range of applications indicates that biodegradable replacements, with tunable characteristics, are required if the end products are to be sustainable. Production of microspheres, be they solid, hollow, or with tunable porosity, must be scalable (both with respect to scale-down and scale-up – the former for testing and prototyping, the latter for production) and, to fulfill the more stringent sustainability requirements of Future Manufacturing: have low energy requirements, be non-hazardous, and produce products with appropriate lifetimes that do not persist in the environment at end-of-life, i.e. that ultimately biodegrade, returning the atoms to the biological nutrient cycles in accordance with the Circular Economy concept.Vision: to develop a manufacturing platform, based on scalable membrane emulsification combined with chemical reactions, for the production of bio-based and bio-degradable microspheres: 1. solid microbeads, 2. hollow microcapsules, and 3. porous microsponges, to replace those based on petrochemical polymers, currently in use. By integrating engineering and chemistry to develop flexible, robust methodology for reproducibly generating microspheres of controllable size, hardness, density and porosity, we will provide the research to underpin manufacturing of new sustainable materials for personal care products, coatings and as polymer fillers (for the growing bioplastics industry).Lay summary: In project BIOBEADS we propose to develop, in combination, new manufacturing routes to new products. Manufacturing will be based on a low-energy process that can be readily scaled up, or down, and the products will be biodegradable microbeads, microscapsules and microsponges, which share the performance characteristics of existing plastic microsphere products, but which will leave no lasting environmental trace. Using bio-based materials such as cellulose (from plants) and chitin (from crab or prawn shells), we will use continuous manufacturing methods to generate microspheres, hollow capsules and porous particles to replace the plastic microbeads currently in use in many applications.Cellulose and chitin are biodegradable and also part of the diet of many marine organisms, meaning they have straightforward natural breakdown routes and will not accumulate in the environment. BIOBEADS will be produced using membrane emulsification techniques.The project builds on our joint expertise in membrane emulsification for continuous production of tunable droplet sizes, dissolution of cellulose and chitin in green solvents and in characterization of nanoscale and microscale structures to study all aspects of particle formation from precursors, through formation processes, to degradation routes. The primary focus will be spheres and capsules, for use in cosmetics and personal care formulations, but, by understanding the processes and mechanisms of formation of these spheres, we aim to be able to tailor particle properties to suit larger scale applications from paint stripping, to fillers in biodegradable plastics.The BIOBEADS research team will work with industrial partners, including very large manufacturers of personal care products, to ensure that the research conducted can be taken up and used, so having a real, positive impact on the manufacturing of new, more sustainable products. ................
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