PROMICON at the International Seminar on Biotechnology

Between 1 and 2 March 2022, the Technological Institute of Plastics AIMPLAS held an International Seminar on Biotechnology. The event took place in an online environment and gathered a wide range of leading international experts, amongst whom were the PROMICON partners Beatriz Altamira-Algarra, Eva González-Flo and Joan García from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia · BarcelonaTech (UPC).

AIMPLAS is a technology center with 30 years of experience in the plastics industry, with a mission to solve the challenges facing the use of plastic in today’s society in order to improve people’s quality of life and ensure environmental sustainability.

The biotechnology industry is one of the fastest growing industries in recent years. Proof of this is that it covers more and more sectors, including one with enormous growth potential: the plastics industry. In this sense, the biotechnology industry proposes and presents innovative solutions that range from the recovery of both organic and synthetic waste to transform them into new sustainable raw materials, promoting the implementation of the circular economy in its strictest sense.

Against this background, AIMPLAS organised the International Seminar on Biotechnology, where the challenges and opportunities offered by biotechnology in the plastics sector in terms of waste management and treatment methods, as well as trends and initiatives being implemented internationally to achieve the goals set by the European Union, have been addressed.

The participants discussed topics related to biotechnology applied to the plastics sector: use of organic waste to obtain new plastics, enzymatic recycling processes for plastics, the role of biotechnology in recovering complex waste, and converting plastics industry scrap into usable resources.

Throughout the discussions, PROMICON has been presented with a poster presentation "PHA and EPS production by cyanobacteria microbiomes," which described the aims and goals of the project and how the UPC team will contribute to their fulfillment.

Photo: PHA and EPS production by cyanobacteria microbiomes Collection, selection and upscaling of natural microbiomes.