Suc­cess­ful applic­a­tion for ZIM cooper­a­tion net­work ​“BioPlastics”

Mar­tin­sried (Ger­many), 13^th Janu­ary 2013 — The grant applic­a­tion for the cooper­a­tion net­work ​“BioPlastics”, sub­mit­ted by Indus­tri­elle Bio­tech­no­lo­gie Bay­ern Net­zwerk GmbH (IBB Net­zwerk GmbH), has now been approved by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Energy (BMWE). Fund­ing is provided with­in the pro­gram ​“Cent­ral Innov­a­tion Pro­gram SME” (Zen­t­rales Innov­a­tion­spro­gramm Mit­tel­stand — ZIM). The inter­dis­cip­lin­ary cooper­a­tion net­work wants to sig­ni­fic­antly increase the mar­ket share of bio-based poly­mers. The focus of the 20 part­ners at the moment lies on tech­nic­al pro­jects for the devel­op­ment of innov­at­ive and low-priced biopoly­mers. These shall be used in mass-pro­duced products such as pack­aging. The biopoly­mer mater­i­als must have the same or even bet­ter prop­er­ties than con­ven­tion­al pet­ro­chem­ic­al plastics. In addi­tion, the pro­duc­tion of biopoly­mers and the mater­i­als them­selves have to ful­fil strict sus­tain­ab­il­ity cri­ter­ia.

The IBB Net­zwerk GmbH was com­mis­sioned by the par­ti­cip­at­ing part­ners for the net­work man­age­ment. This includes expan­sion of the net­work, pro­mo­tion of the net­work inter­ac­tions and design­ing research and devel­op­ment pro­jects. In addi­tion, the IBB Net­zwerk GmbH will inform the pub­lic and devel­op con­cepts to facil­it­ate mar­ket entry. For this, the com­pany receives a total of 150,000 euros from BMWE and the net­work part­ners, ini­tially for one year. After a suc­cess­ful first year, fur­ther fund­ing over two to three years is pos­sible.

Thus, IBB Net­zwerk GmbH is act­ive in a field with enorm­ous envir­on­ment­al rel­ev­ance: food pack­aging, car­ri­er bags, toys or func­tion­al cloth­ing made of pet­ro­chem­ic­al plastics are an integ­ral part of our every­day lives. How­ever, their per­sist­ence is a prob­lem, because they are hardly degrad­able in the envir­on­ment. For this reas­on, pol­lut­ing plastic waste accu­mu­lates more and more, clearly vis­ible in the oceans. ​“In order to reduce this pol­lu­tion, the cooper­a­tion net­work ​‘BioPlastics’ wants to focus on bio-based, bio­de­grad­able poly­mers and will adapt their require­ments accord­ing to the par­tic­u­lar applic­a­tion,” explains Prof. Har­alabos Zorbas, CEO of the IBB Net­zwerk GmbH. Due to their fea­tures, the mar­ket poten­tial for bio-based poly­mers is huge. In future, the cooper­a­tion net­work will unlock this poten­tial.

About the cooper­a­tion net­work ​“BioPlastics”

The net­work com­prises 20 part­ners at the moment: Arbeits­gruppe Chemische Funk­tion­en in Biosyste­men, 2mag AG, ANiM­OX GmbH, Baer­locher GmbH, BART­LING GmbH & Co. KG, Beucke & Söhne GmbH & Co. KG, Bion­at­ic GmbH & Co. KG, Fritzmei­er Umwelt­tech­nik GmbH, Gaplast GmbH, HPX Poly­mers GmbH, ifeu — Insti­tut für Ener­gie- und Umwelt­forschung Heidel­berg GmbH, jura-plast GmbH, jura-tech GmbH, provenion GmbH, Rampf Eco­sys­tems GmbH & Co. KG, Siegwerk Druck­farben AG & Co. KGaA, Tech­nis­che Uni­versität München — Lehr­stuhl für Chemie Bio­gen­er Rohstoffe, Unaver­a­Chem­Lab GmbH, Wal­ter Rau Lebens­mit­tel­werke GmbH & Co. KG and West­fäl­is­che Wil­helms-Uni­versität Mün­ster — Insti­tut für Moleku­lare Mik­robi­o­lo­gie und Bio­tech­no­lo­gie. IBB Net­zwerk GmbH is in charge of the net­work man­age­ment, will expand the net­work and sup­port the part­ners to devel­op tech­nic­al pro­jects. Fund­ing is ini­tially restric­ted to Janu­ary to Decem­ber 2014. Fur­ther fund­ing over two to three years is possible.