09. Aug 2017

Orange peel polyester?

Spanish plastics research centre AIMPLAS is leading a project to covert the vast amounts of orange peel waste left by the country’s citrus juice industry into a biopolyester suitable for blow molding bioplastic juice bottles and extruded profiles.

oThe project MIPLASCOE, funded by CDTI through the programme Interconecta 2016, will focus on extracting different monomers from the citrus waste using microbial fermentation and bio-polyester synthesis.  Partners include Madrid-based wine and juice specialist J. Garcia Carrion; bioscience firm Agrocode in Almería; research laboratory Canagrosa and civil and rail engineering company Azvi Group, both of Seville and researchers from the University of Seville and the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Two plastics processors involved are PET bottle moulder Plastipak Iberia of Toledo and profile extruder Lisanplast, based in Murcia.
Spain is the world’s fifth largest grower of oranges and the largest in Europe. The orange industry is centred in AIMPLAS” home region of Valencia, where three million tonnes of citrus fruits are produced each year, approximately the 60 per cent of the national production.
Currently, the citrus waste derived from this important industry undergoes energy intensive processing into animal feed pellets or is consigned to landfill. In both cases, there are environmental impacts.

The project is scheduled to run through December 2018.

http://www.aimplas.net

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