BIOVALSA will develop a new process that will enable the use of agricultural waste to manufacture bioplastics, 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 lignocellulosic biomass to be recovered for use in various applications 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 flexibility and heat resistance.
