07-05-2019
Maria Ascensão Reis, leader of the Bioeng-pt Laboratory at UCIBIO - FCT NOVA, is one of the members of the consortium of the European project YPACK that intends to create bioplastics from waste coming from the food industry like whey. The consortium of the project, funded by the European Union, includes several universities and companies, among them the NOVA University of Lisbon, the University of Minho and the Continente hypermarkets.
Maria Ascensão Reis explained to Expresso that "we needed a raw material with little value and, therefore, with a very low cost. We chose whey because it exists in large quantities and the production of cheese is common to almost all European countries. "
Bacteria feed on whey to produce the polymers, agglomerates of molecules that function as the basis of bioplastics. The methodology was developed in the laboratory "on a pilot scale and we passed the technology to a Belgian partner to produce it on a semi-industrial scale", adds Maria Ascenção Reis.
Meet the Department of Chemistry of FCT NOVA.
