Extrusion International 1-2026

33 Extrusion International 1/2026 MATERIALS, BIOPLASTICS – FROM THE RESEARCH What message would you like to send to professionals in the sector? Plastics have a future – and that future will be sustain- able or it won’t exist. We have both the responsibility and the opportunity to transform their role in industry and society. Equiplast aims to be the space where this transformation becomes visible, where the plastics in- dustry proves it can be a driver of solutions, not part of the problem.
 www.equiplast.com Project – Innovate Processes to Manufacture Sustainable Bioplastics from Agricultural Waste and Pruning Residues Every year, the Valencian agricultural sector generates around 800,000 tons of plant waste, such as rice straw and citrus pruning waste. Currently, the methods for recovering this biomass are costly, as they require commercial enzymes that can represent up to 40% of the cost of the process, which limits its industrial viability. To solve this problem, AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, is leading the “BIOVALSA” project, an initiative that seeks to develop innovative processes for manufacturing sustainable bioplastics from agricultural waste and pruning residues. The project is funded by IVACE+i Innovation and receives financial support from the European Union through the ERDF Comunitat Valenciana programme for the 2021-2027 period. B IOVALSA will develop a new process that will enable the use of agricultural waste to manufacture bio- plastics, a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based synthetics. This initiative aims to develop alternative routes for recovering value from rice straw biomass, thereby avoiding the use of costly chemical compounds. Specifically, the idea is to replace the usual treatments with others that allow the three fractions (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) that make up the lignocellu - losic biomass to be recovered for use in various applica- tions of interest to the bioplastics industry. Cellulose will thus be used to produce lactic acid, a key compound in the manufacture of PLA, the most widely used bioplastic, while hemicellulose is expected to yield succinic acid, which is necessary for the production of PBS, another sustainable biopolymer with greater flex - ibility and heat resistance. Finally, the antimicrobial properties of lignin make it suitable for recovery and use as an additive to prevent the proliferation of microorganisms, which increases the market value and expands the potential applications of these biodegradable and compostable materials.-- Collaborating companies and centres Coordinated by AIMPLAS, which contributes its expe- rience in both waste recovery and biopolymer manu- facturing, “BIOVALSA” also brings together specialists from the University Institute of Food Engineering at