May 17th, 2013.– On the International Recycling Day, Bioboard EU-funded project campaigns for the valorisation of currently discarded food and protein-rich waste while many tons of paperboard, coated paper and cardboard are every day manufactured worldwide, with polyethylene (PE) or petrochemical based coating material generally used leading to complex structures which may be difficult to recycle.

The Bio-Board innovation promotes the material recyclability or compostability of coated paper and cardboard and derived laminates. The BioBoard barrier coating, which will be developed by this European project, will be easily biodegradable and moreover could be easily washed off from the substrate where it is applied using enzymatic detergents.
In response to the increasing political, legislative and consumer pressure to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel based plastics, but also to produce recyclable solutions, the BioBoard project is developing a sustainable coating system based on the renewable raw material derived from agrofood waste. BioBoard aims to produce packaging materials from the extrusion of coating paper, paperboard and cardboard. The base material for the coating will be innovative formulations based on proteins such as whey and residues from potato. Indeed, as a by-product coming from cheese production, still 40-50% of the 50 million tons of whey produced annually in Europe is discarded, while about 65,000 tonnes of dried potato juice protein and 140,000 tonnes of dried potato pulp produced annually within the EU could be available for new valorisations.

BioBoard will provide a powerful solution to increase recycling rates of paperboard and cartonboard and also support packaging recycling policies. Indeed, paper laminates and aseptic packages are difficult to recycle due to the impossibility in separating the individual layers comprised in its multilayer construction (different laminated layers of paper, plastic and optionally aluminium). The recycling process involves grinding, washing, flotation, cleaning and screening to finally recover the fibres and not all paper mills are equipped for handling resulting residues comprising up to 25% of aluminium and plastic. The high shearing during the recycling leads to a reduction of the fibres size and limits their reuse to less demanding applications. Substituting much of the currently used PE by the new bio-based coating, so called BioBoard, will enable them to overcome current challenges in the recycling of such packaging. Moreover, when combined with only compostable layers such as paper (ie. in absence of aluminum), BioBoard will lead to fully compostable laminates, whereas a lot of these laminates used for pouches, sachets, service papers are currently incinerated when not easily recyclable.

The BioBoard project coordinator Dr. Elodie Bugnicourt, from Barcelona-based IRIS company, highlights that “BioBoard stands in response to the current demand from producers of coated paper, paperboard and cardboard manufacturers for a bioplastic that will enable them to substitute much of the currently used synthetic coating without compromising the barrier properties of the resulting packaging laminates and overcoming the current challenge to the recycling of such packaging”. Dr. Bugnicourt stresses: “BioBoard is based a holistic integrated environmental approach to increase the sustainability of materials and processes throughout their life cycle”.

The BioBoard project promotes the use of recyclable materials in the food sector closing the loop by applying their waste in innovative packaging solutions. Today, BioBoard wants to remind the importance of recycling end of life packaging to the wide consumer audience while supporting this need offering a new technology to their converters.
The three-year project, which is composed by 14 partners from 10 European countries, has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) managed by REA Research Executive Agency under grant agreement n°315313.

About the International Recycling Day
International Recycling Day is celebrated every year on the 17^th of May.  On this day, activities to encourage recycling efforts take place worldwide.  Each year the popularity of the day has been gaining strength, so that more countries are joining in to spread high quality information about everything related to recycling different types of waste during the day.

IRIS Research&Development

InterTradeIreland is an event aimed at helping SMEs, researchers and other organisations across the island to prepare for Horizon 2020, the new EU funding instrument for innovation.  IRIS will have the opportunity to hear about the opportunities and supports available, meet potential partners and learn about the benefits of North-South collaborations in EU funded projects.  If you are attending InterTradeIreland and wish to meet us, please send us an email to nllansana [at] iris.cat. IRIS Director Oonagh McNerney will be present at the InterTradeIreland.

The event, free to access, will take place in The Hogan Suite of the Croke Park Conference Centre. Parking is available – please click on the link for more details.

Follow the conference on Twitter @Inter_Trade using the hashtag #c2i.

Download Horizon Conference Programme (372 KB)

IRIS Research&Development has pioneered a new tool for amateur golfers by developing a smart mobile application known as GolfBoss.

GolfBoss is a new application designed for the iPhone by IRIS, providing skilled golfers with their free personal caddy and bringing greater social interaction between members.

Real-time courses 
By signign up to GolfBoss Social, players can join a four ball and compete in a match play against golfers from around the globe in real-time. GolfBoss mobile app allows users to automatically track their rounds in a scorecard and easily share, compare and improve their game. Amateur golfers will get their club recommendations according to an algorythm depending on the distance of your stroke.

‘Own you game’
GolfBoss provides amateur golfers with free smart personal caddy to keep scores, get club recommendations, track stats to improve their game. Out on the course, GolfBoss technology is navigation-friendly and easy-to-use, allowing golfers to focus on their game.

The GolfBoss app was developed by the web and app developers team of the Spanish-based IRIS company, dedicated to provide innovative solutions for SMEs and large companies. The app can be downloaded free for iPhone from Appstore by searching for GolfBoss or IRIS SL.

About IRIS
IRIS Research&Development is a private engineering and R&D company established in 2007 and based at the Mediterranean Technology Park in Castelldefels, Barcelona (Spain). IRIS offers advanced engineering and R&D solutions to help companies optimise their industrial processes and improve their product’s performance, quality and safety. IRIS experts work closely with the industry to offer affordable, high quality contract R&D services tailored to the specific needs of each company. IRIS is also developing cost-effective technological solutions aimed at improving critical aspects of manufacturing productivity and competitiveness. IRIS leads several research projects under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

The IRIS Services Director Ismael Almazan, and the deputy mayor of Castelldefels, Santiago Barona

IRIS R&D received the fourth acknowledgement as one of ‘Best Business Initiative 2012′ and is the only awarded-company in the city of Castelldefels. IRIS has received a package of services that includes tools for managing and promoting business valued at 1,500 euros: local advertising space in the magazine, the website reports the center of economic development and use of rooms, subject to availability, and interview Local mass media.The award includes a pack of services with promotion and averstising purposes which is valued at 1500€.

On Thursday April 18th the ‘Delta’ award-giving ceremony took place in the Plenary room of Gava’s City Hall (Barcelona). The Delta Award recognizes the establishment of new businesses for their contribution to the ‘Delta del  Llobregat’ cities.

The Best Business Initiative is rewarded with a first prize of €3,000 and a package of services for the management and business development.  The company Bel&Bel settled in Viladecans as a studio-workshop dedicated to extend the materials’ life-cycle won the award. The second prize included €1,000 and a package of services for the management and business development. It was delivered to the company Gava Millennium Baby, engaged in the wholesale distribution of childcare articles for Spain, Portugal and Andorra.
Businesses Renewable Energies SunCat SLU (engineering services for renewable energy) from El Prat de Llobregat and Prima-Derm, SLU (research, development, design, manufacture and marketing of final products cosmetics) from Gava, received the third and fifth prizes, respectively.

This year, there were 43 candidate companies to the awards, eight of which settled in Castelldefels: IRIS, Graphics JJ, Helen Doron mercatoria, Mosaiccos, High Fidelity Collective’s and Melomaniak.

Representatives of the Castelldefels companies which participated to Delta Awards

Delta Awards arise from the common will of the five city councils (Castelldefels, Gavà, Sant Boi de Llobregat, El Prat de Llobregat and Viladecans) to reward the creation and development of new business activities arising locally and encourage the creation and consolidation of new companies as well as recognizing its role as a tool for socio-economic dynamism and job creation. The awards have become a benchmark for new entrepreneurs while a permanent mechanism for supporting and promoting entrepreneurial culture.

The Delta Awards jury was composed of representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Council of Baix Llobregat, CCOO, Barcelona Provincial Council, Government of Catalonia, Pimec, AEBALL and UGT.

About IRIS
IRIS company was founded in January 2007 as a result of the vision of the Irish married couple Colm Digby and Oonagh McNerney. Just installed in Barcelona, they founded the company in response to the growing demand by the industry in terms of advanced engineering and research and development services to provide tangible and added value to the industry.

Since its inception, IRIS has been specialized in the field of food technology to improve production procedures, providing higher levels of safety, quality and hygiene in the food industry. As a result of the increased activity of the company, IRIS gone down its internal structure in six areas, expanding its field of action to start eating other areas of science and engineering.

The largest asset of IRIS lies in its team, which reached 40 people after the company was founded in 2007 with just two people. The staff is highly qualified: 30% of the workforce is comprises by doctors, engineers and researchers of various types in order to tackle any project in the areas of food technology expertise, the ecomaterials, the optical and mechanical systems, the automation, production processes and intelligence science or Smart Systems. IRIS talented teams are reflected in the wide range of technological capabilities at enterprises’ disposal, customised to their specific needs.

Kevin Keener, a professor of food science who is working with researchers at Dublin Institute of Technology, National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology at Dublin City University in Ireland, and Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible (IRIS) in Spain, looks for new ways to kill harmful bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella, that contaminate foods and cause serious illnesses and deaths. The SAFE-BAG project technology uses electricity to generate a plasma, or ionized gas, from atmospheric gases inside the food package.

SAFE-BAG is now developing a precommercial system for larger-scale decontamination testing. After that, a commercial system may be created to be used in food-processing plants. Future research will also consider how the process affects food quality. This method stands as an alternatives to washing foods in chlorine baths.

In-pack decontamination with plasma

The in-package plasma process creates a wide variety of bacteria-killing molecules including ozone, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen peroxide and others. These molecules only exist for a few hours and then revert back to the original atmospheric gas, leaving a bacteria-free product.

In findings published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, Keener and researchers at the Dublin Institute of Technology demonstrated that sealed-package atmospheric plasma works well to kill bacteria in growth media. Their experiments showed that bacteria on these surfaces were eliminated with 20 seconds of treatment and 24 hours of exposure to the gases it creates. Keener said the cost of the process should be comparable to current chemical and heat treatments used to sanitize foods. ”Even in the most resistant bacteria-growing media, 45 seconds of treatment gave us complete elimination of the E. coli,” Keener said. “Under a microscope, we saw holes forming in the cell walls of the bacteria.”

Adapting the technology for liquids could allow development of portable devices to clean drinking water in areas with contamination or that lack other purification methods. It could also allow food processors to bottle juices without first heating them, a process widely used to kill bacteria that can alter products.

“Results from recent testing of E. coli bacteria in liquid suspensions demonstrated significant bacterial reductions with no heating or visual color change.” Keener said. “This suggests that atmospheric cold plasma treatment may achieve a cold pasteurization process for liquid foods to extend shelf-life and improve safety.”

Watch the YouTube video where Kevin Keener, Professor Food Science in Purdue University, describes the in-package plasma process and explains why this is an effective and low-cost decontamination method:

During the past two years, the GERONIMO 2 team has performed energy audits in 76 European dairy and pig farms across Europe. Training sessions for farmers have taken place in the 11 countries of the project, some of them accompanied with study visits to interesting biogas projects. Furthermore, an e-learning module is being implemented in the project website through which farmers across Europe will be able to learn about the benefits of biogas technology in an online training session. Simultaneously, a round of meetings with regional policy makers are taking place across Europe in order to discuss the current biogas framework and suggest new probiogas polices.

In the current months, pilot biogas projects on farms are being selected among the most promising audited ones and will develop a business plan together with their regional Geronimo 2 partner to evaluate the feasibility of the creation of a biogas plant in their farms. It is interesting to mention that in parallel to huge centralized biogas projects which are being built in central and north Europe, there is an increasing need on small-scale biogas plant technology for the self production of electricity and heat in individual farms. In this respect it is worth mentioning the German EEG 2012, with special feed-in tariffs of up to 25 c€/kWh for individual.

The Geronimo II – BIOGAS project has just published the Newsletter Issue III, which features an interview to “Zsellér” farm in Hungary audited by MFKK Kft within the Geronimo II – Biogas project; a technical article on a Maltese farm, information on current energy policy in Spain as well as other biogas-related information. Click here to download the Geronimo 2 Newsletter Issue III.

All activities and materials of the project can be found in the project’s website along with information regarding biogas technology and updated news on the project development. Also in the website you will find a biogas calculator that will help you estimate your biogas potential to make profit of your manure.

The 2.5 years initiative is supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Union. The 13 partners from across Europe are working closely with Farmers at grassroots level to determine the viability of biogas as a feasible investment for their farms, through supporting them in getting promising biogas business plans off the ground; and Policy makers to ensure that identified potential barriers to the uptake of Biogas can be broken down.

After the institutional opening by local authorities, the WaterBee irrigation system was successfully demonstrated to growers and farmers by providing the real-time data from the system installed at the several ongoing sites across Europe. WaterBee testimonials were also involved in the event and shared their experience on the WaterBee system.

WaterBee system stands as a result of the EU-funded WaterBee project. This project, known as “WaterBee Smart Irrigation Demonstration Action” is the follow-on phase from the very successful FP7-SME-007-1 WaterBee “Research for SMEs” project (222440) that ended in September 2010, and very convincingly researched, developed and proved the concept of the WaterBee Prototype to provide an unique scientific soil-moisture model that automatically adapts to each installation & crop with a distributed web-based Wireless Sensor Networked (WSN) smart irrigation system to optimise Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in irrigation.

WaterBee Demonstration Session raised awareness about water use in the agriculture sector, which wastes 60% of the 2,500 trillion litres of water it uses each year – which is 70% of the world’s accessible freshwater – a huge threat to the environment.

The Catalan regional government also participated to this event, with a conference on the “Current situation of the irrigation in Catalonia” by Mr. Antonio Enjuanes, Subdirector of Rural Infrastructures in the Department of Agriculture, Farming, Fish and Environment (DAAM) of the Generalitat de Catalunya. He stressed the need of saving water and thus monitoring crops irrigation. A session to introduce the cost-effective smart irrigation and water management system followed Mr. Enjuanes speech. Finally, the WaterBee system was demonstrated at the  Barcelona Agrofood School of the Mediterranean Technology Park in the UPC. The system collected and shown real time data for supporting growers watering decision-making.

Parc UPC Director, Geomatics Institute responsible, IRIS Director and Mayor of Castelldefels attended the WaterBee event under the World Water Day

WaterBee empowers growers, vineyards, golf clubs, public authorities and landscape managers to optimise their commercial and sustainable environmental operations. The web sensor networked irrigation system is centrally monitored and coordinated, and the WaterBee services are provided across Europe through collaborating Business Partners, who work closely with their local customers.

WaterBee Demonstration Event was registered under the UN-Water official events list.

World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. In 2013, in reflection of the International Year of Water Cooperation, World Water Day is also dedicated to the theme of cooperation around water and is coordinated by UNESCO in collaboration with UNECE and UNDESA on behalf of UN-Water.

Under the World Water Day event,  the WaterBee irrigation system will be demonstrated at an Open Demonstration in Castelldefels, Barcelona, as a result of the EU-funded WaterBee project. The Catalan Government will support this event, with an opening conference on the “Current situation of the irrigation in Catalonia” by Mr. Antonio Enjuanes, Subdirector of Rural Infrastructures in the Department of Agriculture, Farming, Fish and Environment (DAAM) of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Following an introduction to the cost-effective smart irrigation and water management system by the WaterBee project consortium, the team will demonstrate the WaterBee system and will collect and show real time data for supporting growers watering decision-making. The event will be attended by growers and students, since the “Agropolis” area in Viladecans belongs to the Politechnics University of Catalonia (UPC).

This project, known as “WaterBee Smart Irrigation Demonstration Action” is the follow-on phase from the very successful FP7-SME-007-1 WaterBee “Research for SMEs” project (222440) that ended in September 2010, and very convincingly researched, developed and proved the concept of the WaterBee Prototype to provide an unique scientific soil-moisture model that automatically adapts to each installation & crop with a distributed web-based Wireless Sensor Networked (WSN) smart irrigation system to optimise Water Use Efficiency (WUE) in irrigation.

WaterBee empowers growers, vineyards, golf clubs, public authorities and landscape managers to optimise their commercial and sustainable environmental operations. The web sensor networked irrigation system is centrally monitored and coordinated, and the WaterBee services are provided across Europe through collaborating Business Partners, who work closely with their local customers.

WaterBee one-day event aims at raising awareness about water use in the agriculture sector, which wastes 60% of the 2,500 trillion litres of water it uses each year – which is 70% of the world’s accessible freshwater – a huge threat to the environment.

‘WaterBee’ Open Demonstration Agenda – 22/03/13 

09:30h. Welcome and Register

10:00h. Opening by Parc UPC Director, Elisabeth Jordà
10:05h. Mayor of Castelldefels Manuel Reyes
10.10h. “Today’s situation of irrigation in Catalonia” by Subdirector of Rural Infrastructures of Catalan Government: Generalitat de Catalunya (Department of Agriculture, Farm and Environment).
10.45h. “Smart Irrigation and Water Efficiency”, IRIS Director Oonagh McNerney

10:55h.  Introduction to WaterBee system by IRIS Services Director Ismael Almazan.
11:00h.  WaterBee project by its coordinator John O’Flaherty of MAC*
11:15h. WaterBee Science and Model by Gonçalo Rodrigues from University of Cranfield*. Includes demonstration trials and results.
11:30h. Irrigation Sensors by Terence McBurney from Mc Burney Scientific Ltd*
11:45h. Introduction to the different elements of the WaterBee system by IRIS
12:00h. Testimonials:  Farmers watering situation and current needs and views WaterBee.

12:15h. Demonstration of the WaterBee system at the crops belonging to the Agrofood School in the PMT-UPC, with real-time readings. Includes explanation & demonstration of the user interface (iPhones, iPads)

13:00h. End – Interviews with media

(*) All conferences will be in Catalan, except those marked with *, which will be in English.

If you wish to participate, please contact Natalia Llansana by sending an email to info[at]waterbee.eu, or call to +34 93 557 01 12.

World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. http://www.worldwaterday.org

In December 2010, the United Nation General Assembly declared 2013 as the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation. The objective of the year is to raise awareness of the potential for, and value of increased cooperation in relation to water.

Processing and Validation of Whey-Protein-Coated Films and Laminates at Semi-Industrial Scale as Novel Recyclable Food Packaging Materials with Excellent Barrier Properties

¹Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible (IRIS), Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia, Avenida Carl Friedrich Gauss No. 11, 08860 Castelldefels, Spain
²Material Development Department, Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV, Giggenhauser Straße 35, 85354 Freising, Germany
³Chair of food packaging technology, Technische Universität München, Weihenstephaner Steig 22, 85354 Freising, Germany
⁴Food Technology and Bioprocess Engineering, ttz Bremerhaven, Fischkai 1, 27572 Bremerhaven, Germany
⁵Department of Chemical Engineering, Industrial Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi No. 2, 56126 Pisa, Italy

Received 25 August 2012; Accepted 5 January 2013

Academic Editor: Wen-Hua Sun

Abstract

A biopolymer coating for plastic films was formulated based on whey protein, and its potential to replace current synthetic oxygen barrier layers used in food packaging such as ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymers (EVOH) was tested. The whey-coating application was performed at semi-industrial scale. High barrier to oxygen with transmission rate down to ranges of 1 cm³ (STP) m⁻² d⁻¹ bar⁻¹ at 23ºC and 50% relative humidity (r.h.) but interesting humidity barrier down to ranges of 3 g m⁻² d⁻¹ (both normalized to 100 μm thickness) were reached, outperforming most existing biopolymers. Coated films were validated for storing various food products showing that the shelf life and sensory attributes were maintained similar to reference packaging films while complying with food safety regulations. The developed whey coating could be enzymatically removed within 2 hours and is therefore compatible with plastic recycling operations to allow multilayer films to become recyclable by separating the other combined layers. A life cycle assessment was performed showing a significant reduction in the environmental impact of the packaging thanks in particular to the possibility of recycling materials as opposed to incinerating those containing EVOH or polyamide (PA), but due to the use of biosourced raw materials.

Click here to download the full Research Article, provided by Hindawi