The Eurostars project combined PulPac’s unique fiber-forming technology with new components from the plastic industry and its potential to operate with fibers sourced from agricultural residues – provided by Bio-Lutions – has been successfully validated with exciting results and will be introduced into the market during the later part of 2023.

Ove Larsson, chief technology innovation officer at PulPac said, “Cellulose fibers are the obvious solution for global single-use plastic substitution and these results validate a path for the plastic industry to accelerate the transition to sustainable dry molded fiber. This technology enables packaging and products made from renewable sources that are biodegradable and recyclable, cost-effective and supporting the circular economy. I am very excited about introducing new solutions based on this project to the marketplace later this year.”

The scope was to design, build and test a prototype of a dry molded fiber machine by adapting standard components, traditionally used for the production of plastic products. It is now validated for production in the increasingly growing fiber packaging markets, and it is proven that dry molded fiber also benefits from using agricultural residues as inputs, besides standard pulp.

PulPac has solved the technical challenge, while Bio-Lutions has supported with operational expertise and supported pilot tests with its unique fibcro fibers.

“We are very proud of having completed this R&D project to validate a new cutting-edge solution and demonstrating the capabilities in combining Bio-Lutions’ fibcro natural fibers sources from agricultural residues with the dry molded fiber process,” said Eduardo Gordillo, CEO Bio-Lutions.

Eurostars is the largest international funding program for SMEs wishing to collaborate on R&D projects that create innovative products, processes, or services for commercialization. This project was also funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova.