The European Commission is to contribute €6.5m to a new collaborative project looking to develop sustainable wood-based composite materials.
SustainComp will work on new products for a wide range of applications, combining wood, bioplastics and nanotechnology to produce “sustainable and lightweight materials”. It will have a total budget of €9.5m and involves 17 organisations from across Europe.
These “nanostructured wood-based BioComposites” will provide an environmentally sensitive alternative to traditional composite materials that use oil-based plastics, while also “fostering new concepts and materials in a broad and innovative prospective” within the wood-based industries.
“The targeted products in SustainComp open new business areas for the European forest-based industry,” said Mikael Ankerfors, from project co-ordinator and Swedish research and development company STFI-Packforsk AB.
“We expect that SustainComp will find new renewable cost-effective materials that can be implemented in existing manufacturing operations,” added Folke Österberg, director of project partner SCA Research and Development Centre.
A three-day conference will be held at STFI-Packforsk on September 1-3 to kick-start the project.
