Clara Bilbao

AIMPLAS, AITIIP, CIDAUT and GAIKER make up this network, which focuses on applying bioplastics to food safety in packaging, making transport components lighter and improving agricultural practices.

The success of the MARFIL Network will help reduce dependence on oil, recover agricultural by-products and limit the amount of waste going to landfill without any recovery.

The AIMPLAS Plastics Technology Centre, the CIDAUT Foundation for Research and Development in Transport and Energy and the AITIIP and GAIKER technology centres set up the MARFIL Network to intensify the use of bioplastics, additives and reinforcements from renewable sources as innovative materials in key sectors.

These plastic materials, which have a lower environmental impact, are more easily recyclable and/or biodegradable, and are made from alternative sources to petroleum, will be promoted in sectors that consume large quantities of industrial materials, such as the food packaging sector, and in industrial sectors with high added value, such as transport or agriculture. The aim is to significantly increase their use in applications where they are the best option from an environmental, technical and economic point of view.

To this end, the MARFIL Network will develop a strategic research, development, innovation and training programme focused on strengthening the skills of these centres in terms of developing bio-based plastics, mainly from waste, agro-industrial by-products and alternative biomasses. The skills acquired will be disseminated at different levels to promote collaboration with leading research groups, increase the interest of industry in developing sustainable raw materials and products, attract talent and raise awareness about the environmental benefits of bioplastics for use in applications such as food safety in packaging, making components for the transport sector lighter and improving agricultural practices, thereby ensuring the resilience of the supply chain.

The aim is to use polymers from renewable sources to account for more than 5% of the total in Spain by 2030, which equates to around 200,000 tonnes. The success of the MARFIL Network will go a long way towards reducing dependence on oil, by recovering agricultural by-products (thereby helping to reduce depopulation in rural areas) and limiting the amount of waste going to landfill without any form of recovery.

Three main lines of research

Work will be carried out along three main lines: the sustainable and scalable processing of agro-industrial biomass to produce biopolymers, additives and reinforcements; improvements in their properties and processability through new bioplastic polymerisation techniques; and increased compostability and recyclability.

Although the initial aim is to focus on three main sectors –transport and logistics, packaging, and agriculture and fisheries– the MARFIL Network’s results will be extrapolated to other sectors that use plastics (e.g. construction, electrical-electronics, textiles and furniture) and high value-added industries (e.g. healthcare, biotechnology and aeronautics-aerospace).

GAIKER's work

GAIKER will contribute to all the strategic objectives of the MARFIL Network in order to strengthen the competitive impact of biopolymers in the market. At the level of R&D&I development lines, this Centre specifically leads several of the Network’s training areas, such as:
• Bioprocesses for obtaining microbial biopolymers.
• New routes for obtaining bio-based polymers and reinforcement
• Development of bio-based intermediate composites and products
• Study of functional validation in demonstrators and new end-of-life strategies for biodegradability and recyclability.

Thanks to this Network, GAIKER will significantly increase its technology-related training, and strengthen its transversal strategy on BIOECONOMICS to allow it to go “upstream” in the value chain. This involves training on the latest monomer and material conversion/modification/synthesis technologies and the subsequent development of bio-based products with functionality and processability based on market demand.

The MARFIL Network project is part of the Cervera Technology Centres of Excellence 2023 call published by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and financed with European funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. The programme is managed by the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI by its Spanish acronym).

GAIKER researches and develops technologies and processes for treating and recycling of lithium-ion batteries at the end of their useful life.

GAIKER carries out the following work:

•    Identifying and classifying batteries
•    Discharging batteries
•    Dismantling batteries and removing electrodes
•    Standard and high purity black mass extraction
•    Recovering non-active materials
•    Recovering active materials by hydrometallurgy
•    Characterising black mass

Más información

GAIKER collaborated in creating new technological knowledge to lay the foundations for the smart digital transformation of the model for managing and processing light packaging waste

The SEPARA project “Technological transformation of the waste recovery sector to drive an effective circular economy in Spanish industry”, in which the GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA) took part, was successfully completed after four years.

This research was carried out by a consortium of eight companies led by Ecoembes, an organisation that has promoted the recycling of plastic, metal, tetra pack, wood, paper and cardboard packaging in Spain since 1997. It obtained satisfactory results, achieving all the technical targets set and establishing a firm basis for future advances in the field of digitalising the sorting of waste. In this respect, smart systems have been incorporated at every stage of the process and a digital governance platform has been developed, which not only enables automated plant management, but also has the capacity to produce a wide range of outputs for stakeholders with different needs.

SEPARA is funded by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI by its Spanish acronym) in its aid programme for Strategic Sectoral Initiatives for Business Innovation (the CDTI Missions Programme). SEPARA was created with the aim of creating new knowledge aimed at laying the technological foundations for the smart digital transformation of light packaging waste sorting plants, in order to increase their efficiency and productivity.

To this end, advanced optical technologies, robotic systems, artificial intelligence algorithms and massive data processing systems have been researched, validated, and applied to waste collection, the sorting plant (real-time characterisation of incoming waste, triaging unwanted waste, sorting packaging and monitoring the quality of recovered materials) and to the interconnection of the collection-plant environment.

This research has contributed to expanding and modernising the sorting and recycling capacity of plastic packaging and, therefore, to reaching the target proposed by Directive (EU) 20185/852, whereby all plastic packaging should be recyclable by 2030.

Project partners
The SEPARA project has included the involvement of Ecoembes (project leader), Minsait, Atria Innovation, Pixelabs, Piperlab, Picvisa, SpectralGeo and Trienekens.

---

This project has received a grant from the CDTI as part of the aid programme for Strategic Sectoral Business Innovation Initiatives (the CDTI Missions Programme) under record number MIG-20201006.

The ONTZHI project is working on developing new materials for storing and transporting hydrogen gas and new methods for characterising the interaction of hydrogen with storage and transport infrastructure materials.

The GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), is participating in the “Key technologies for storing and transporting hydrogen, ONTZHI” project, the aim of which is to research technologies and solutions for storing and transporting hydrogen that are safer, more compact, cost-effective and sustainable.

The European Union aims to achieve a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2023 and emission neutrality by 2050. The use of green hydrogen could be a solution, as it is a 100% clean energy source, which is energy efficient, produces no gases and the only waste it generates is water. But this requires safe, cost-effective storage and transportation on a large scale to ensure its economic competitiveness.

Hydrogen can currently be stored and transported as a gas under pressure in tanks and pipelines or as a liquid in cryogenic tanks, but due to its physico-chemical properties, which are quite different from those of other fuels, developing these technologies is difficult and advances in research are needed to develop infrastructures to make it possible to transport and store it.  

In order to respond to this situation, the ONTZHI project, which is financed by the Basque Government (ELKARTEK programme), was launched in 2023, in an attempt to find solutions for storing and transporting hydrogen, by developing new materials and strategies to protect materials from the degrading effect of hydrogen.

This project aims to improve the strength of the materials used to make tanks and pipes, reduce weight and cost, increase the safety and sustainability of storage and transport systems, and research and create knowledge on the limits of metallic materials in their interaction with hydrogen. As a result, two laboratory-scale demonstrators will be developed, one for hydrogen barrier coatings and the other for a Type IV H2 storage tank based on recyclable polymers, as well as a computational model that will be used to define and develop simplified characterisation methods.

GAIKER focuses its activity mainly on providing solutions for mobility tanks. It is working on designing and researching polymerisable thermoplastic materials on site with hydrogen barrier properties, for producing liners by rotational moulding and casings by filament winding for type IV hydrogen tanks, and designing and researching thermoplastic composites in tape format for producing casings with robotic tape winding technology.

ONTZHI aims to improve the scientific, technological and commercial positioning of the Basque Science, Technology and Innovation Network (RVCTi by its Spanish acronym) and Basque companies in the hydrogen sector, particularly green hydrogen transport and storage technologies.

The project is subsidised by the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government (ELKARTEK 2023 Programme).

R&D&I and knowledge transfer has boosted the creation of units dedicated to the transfer function, the so-called “Knowledge Transfer Offices” (KTOs).

The activity of KTOs should be geared towards building relationships between R&D&I knowledge creators and the industrial and social sector, and towards obtaining economic and social results from knowledge transfer.

GAIKER is committed to being part of this structure and has registered as a KTO with the aim of fostering technology transfer and dissemination, promoting R&D&I and communicating with the industrial and social environment.

KTO-GAIKER seeks to involve companies in the management and development of R&D as a tool for competitiveness and technological progress, by undertaking projects and encouraging participation in other activities that we carry out at the Centre.

Our functions include:

• Protecting R&D&I results
• Exploiting research results
• Collaborative research with public and private entities, contracting R&D&I and technological services.
• Promoting the creation of knowledge-based entities.
• Disseminating knowledge socially.