We’ve been awarded a grant to do work worth £130k from the Henry Royce Institute’s Industrial Collaboration Programme. This funding will enable us to take our biorefining process to the next stage with CPI and characterise our polymer with Royce Manchester.
Single use laundry capsules rely on the synthetic plastic PVOH for their dissolvable film, yet PVOH is under growing regulatory scrutiny over its plastic footprint and uncertainty surrounding its environmental fate. Our polymer is a plastic-free drop-in replacement for PVOH, the synthetic film used in laundry capsules, dishwasher tablets and other packaging. It’s designed to run on existing filling and sealing lines, dissolves at a comparable rate and extends shelf life, making it an easy choice for film manufacturers and brands.
What does this mean for our PlantSea plastic-free polymer?
This project will scale our production from 450L to 5,000L over 5 months, with the ambition to reach 10,000L.This grant will allow us to access expertise and specialist industrial equipment at the Henry Royce Institute at the University of Manchester. Mapping how the polymer behaves when used by film manufacturers.
A message from PlantSea’s Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder
Co-Founder and CTO Alex Newnes said: “Royce ICP is a competitive programme and we’re proud to be one of the funded projects. We’ve already shown in lab testing and industrial trials with major brands that our polymer matches PVOH on functional performance, which is something few other biopolymers have managed. What this grant unlocks for us in practical terms is the volume and the data we need for a film manufacturer to plan a production trial with full confidence in how the polymer will run on their line. My thanks to Ronald Turner, Stephen Wright, Dr Jude Huggan and the team at CPI, to Geoff Blunt and the team at Royce Manchester, and to everyone at PlantSea for the work that got us here.
The regulatory landscape for synthetic polymers is shifting fast, and procurement teams are already asking questions. If you’re looking at plastic-free alternatives to PVOH we’re currently trialling with partners and would love to hear from you.