kasper

Photo by Nguyen TP Hai on Unsplash Authors: Laura Äkräs and Marjatta Vahvaselkä No alternative is perfect, yet advantageous in the right context You already know this, but let’s recapitulate! Nowadays, the role of biomass-derived, bio-based feedstock has increased as a raw material for a myriad of end applications as one approach to reduce some of the negative …

A dive into the multifaceted sustainability of plant-based oils for plastics Read More »

Authors: Frans Silvenius, Marjatta Vahvaselkä and Hannu Ilvesniemi / Luke When performing a life-cycle assessment (LCA), data is collected from all relevant parts of different production systems related to the whole value chain covering the raw material, manufacturing, transport and waste management phases. This essential and time-consuming task can be done by using different data …

Data collection for life-cycle assessments in project ValueBioMat Read More »

Authors: Rosa Maria Ballardini, Juha Vesala and Corinna Casi / University of Lapland The European Union is currently seeking to tackle the environmental issues that relate to plastics. The measures targeting or affecting plastics include particularly the Single-Use Plastics Directive (2019/904) that is due to implemented in EU Member States by 3 July 2021. EU …

Plastics and Current Legislative Developments – Some Insights Read More »

Authors: Niklas Kretzschmar, Sergei Chekurov and Jouni Partanen / Aalto University Even though additive manufacturing (AM), also known as industrial 3D printing, is already there for some decades facilitating the manufacture of new design variations and legacy parts, it is still considered as a set of new production technologies. For numerous technical reasons, AM hasn’t …

Additive manufacturing technologies –productivity and process innovation on a sustainable basis? Read More »

Authors: Jukka Seppälä, Laura Äkräs, Kasper Dienel / Aalto University Plastics are central in our modern life and have plenty of good properties that advance sustainability. However, they have recently received a lot of negative and contradictory attention. But what materials are considered as plastics? This has been one of the key questions when preparing …

Sustainable plastics – what are they? Read More »

Authors: Satu Salminen, Jaakko Siltaloppi / Aalto University The transition from fossil-based to bio- and circular economy is emerging as one of the major necessary societal transitions of the coming decades. While bio-based and recycled plastics are increasingly perceived as opening future business opportunities, as we have identified in the ValueBioMat project, in practice only …

Building a business case for renewable plastics innovation among material producers Read More »

Author: Lars Vilen, Jaakko Siltaloppi / Aalto University The current linear economy model of plastics production and consumption entails a number of issues, including the leakage of plastics waste into the environment. Certainly the most salient issue from a political perspective, the environmental problems with plastics have induced a variety of political actions especially in …

Three avenues for developing plastic reuse and recycling Read More »

Authors: Hannu Ilvesniemi and Frans Silvenius / Luke The carbon-cycle of bio-based plastics occurs mainly in natural carbon balance: the raw materials are mainly plant-based products, and the carbon content of them has been taken from atmosphere, and when they decompose, the carbon taken from atmosphere returns back. The carbon balance is different when the …

Three pillars of sustainability Read More »

Author: Jouni Partanen/ Aalto University For the last 2 months and more, the news all over the world have been concentrated on the pandemic spreading of the COVID-19 virus and its catastrophic medical consequences.  Hospitals, even in many of the most developed countries, have been ill-equipped for the large number of patients needing intensive care …

Manufacturing Novel Biomaterial Products by 3D Printing Read More »

Author: Jaakko Siltaloppi/ Aalto University The purpose of the ValueBioMat project is to advance the decoupling of the plastics industry from fossil hydrocarbons. This calls for new bio-based feedstocks, technology for polymer synthesis and manufacturing, new models for recycling, as well as new business models that structure the industry’s value creating activities to leverage bio- …

Towards tackling the challenges of bioplastics transition Read More »