Sustainable Plastics from Plants
Innovative interdisciplinary education model
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As a by-product from the wood and paper industries, millions of tonnes of lignin – which provides an important support function in the cells of woody plants – are accumulated worldwide each year. Although widely available, this renewable resource is only rarely used to produce other materials. Now, though, the new Better BioBased Polymer (B3PO) research and education network – with Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in a coordinating role – is working to develop polymers from lignin and other plant by-products, aiming to replace oil-based plastics. Funded within the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks programme, B3PO will be launched in January 2026. The European Commission is providing EUR 4.3 million in funding over four years.
The project comprises 15 doctoral projects at nine research institutes across Europe. “We’re collaborating with leading global industrial partners and high-tech companies,” explains Robert Kourist of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at TU Graz, who is heading B3PO as the network coordinator. “Our goal is to jointly develop production processes for high-performance polymers that – besides being plant-based – are also recyclable and biodegradable.”
Three-step innovation strategy
Researchers in the B3PO network will implement a three-stage innovation strategy to transform woody biomass into high-performance raw materials for coatings, adhesives, packaging and 3D printing:
- Sustainable disassembly: Residual materials from wood processing are difficult to break down. Their use, therefore, requires intensive pre-treatment, which produces unwanted by-products. In B3PO, researchers are developing a gentler, single-stage process to extract specific lignin-based raw materials from wood waste.
- Bio-assembly: Instead of conventional petrochemicals using harmful chemicals, B3PO uses biotechnological methods and computer-assisted processes, such as machine learning, to convert the lignin raw materials into chemically usable building blocks.
- Re-assembly: The research team uses these chemical building blocks to produce bio-based materials.
The project aims to produce environmentally friendly materials with significantly better properties than conventional petroleum-based alternatives in order to achieve successful commercialisation.
Innovative interdisciplinary education model
When it comes to training early-stage researchers, B3PO combines four disciplines – biotechnology, chemistry, polymer science and materials engineering – to create a uniform educational model, with graduates awarded a double doctorate, a title they can then use in their respective country. The doctoral candidates will each complete supervised, long-term research stays at two partner universities, gaining detailed insights into industrial applications and the practical implementation of innovations developed in the lab, thanks to cooperation with the participating companies. The aim is to train specialists who are in a position to drive forward research and development along the entire bio-based materials value chain.
Alongside TU Graz, the institutes participating directly in B3PO are the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Humboldt University Berlin, RWTH Aachen, Aix-Marseille Université, University of Aveiro, Complutense University of Madrid, Leibniz University Hannover and the University of Zagreb as well as the company HELIOS. The associate partners are acib, AgroBiogel, Bumbuku, Enzymicals, Henkel, Novonesis, SpinChem, Sustainable Momentum, the University of Greifswald and the University of Maribor.
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