Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BIO-SUSHY (Sustainable surface protection by glass-like hybrid and biomaterials coatings)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31
Perfluoro alkyl substances (PFAS) are widely used to provide water and oil repellency for various applications like water repellent and anti-soiling treatment for textiles, food-contact anti-soiling coating on paper packaging or specific paints. However, they are the most persistent synthetic chemicals to date, i.e. they hardly degrade in the natural environment and accumulate in biological tissue and blood, causing health and environmental issues worldwide. To counter these adverse impacts, BIO-SUSHY aims to develop innovative coating solutions designed to meet the policy ambition of the EU’s chemical strategy for sustainability toward a toxic-free environment. BIO-SUSHY particularly targets new biofriendly ways to obtain durable water and oil repellent coatings, which will be validated in 3 target markets: textile, food packaging and packaging for cosmetics.
BIO-SUSHY implements the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) concept, integrating sustainability strategies such as circularity and eco-design principles. Through a multidisciplinary methodology based on computational tools and data-driven modelling, coupled with rapid release and screening technology and a life cycle thinking, the principles of SSbD are applied to organic and hybrid coating formulations to ensure that, from an early stage of the innovation process, both safety concerns and sustainability criteria are addressed.
Through the demonstration of the validity and applicability of the BIO-SUSHY Innovation approach the achievement of BIO-SUSHY objectives will provide a stepping-stone for Europe’s pathway towards new sustainable-by-design coating materials with enhanced functionalities and applications in a wide range of markets and consumer products with an increased autonomy in key strategic value chains for resilience industry.
BIO-SUSHY implements the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) concept, integrating sustainability strategies such as circularity and eco-design principles. Through a multidisciplinary methodology based on computational tools and data-driven modelling, coupled with rapid release and screening technology and a life cycle thinking, the principles of SSbD are applied to organic and hybrid coating formulations to ensure that, from an early stage of the innovation process, both safety concerns and sustainability criteria are addressed.
Through the demonstration of the validity and applicability of the BIO-SUSHY Innovation approach the achievement of BIO-SUSHY objectives will provide a stepping-stone for Europe’s pathway towards new sustainable-by-design coating materials with enhanced functionalities and applications in a wide range of markets and consumer products with an increased autonomy in key strategic value chains for resilience industry.
BIO-SUSHY targets SSbD PFAS-free coatings for water and oil repellency development. Three new coatings, formulated on the basis of an SSbD approach with the support of computational modelling tools, will be validated in 3 case studies (food trays, textile, and glass packaging for cosmetic applications). Bio-based thermoplastic PFAS-free powder coatings are developed and set the basis for new powder coating approaches of cellulosic materials. Applying a dry coating, PFAs-free, biobased coating for those sets of application will permit avoiding VOC emissions, decrease toxicology and allow adapted end-of-life by compostability or recycling strategies. Hybrid organic/inorganic coatings based on sol-gel chemistry coupled with biobased linkers and functional additives to obtain water and oil repellency without PFAS will serve as the basis for new classes of materials with reduced environmental impact and VOC emissions. At this project stage, building blocks are being evaluated in terms of performance, toxicity, and environmental impact. Further research is needed to assess their potential to be used as safe and sustainable alternatives to PFAS-based coatings.
The SSbD-driven coatng development is supported by design and implementation of computational tools related to materials simulations, the collection, harmonization, FAIRification and data management based on extraction of the data from partner-specific files, the mapping of the data onto a harmonized BIO-SUSHY (meta)data schema, and enrichment with information from external public sources through automatic workflows; the development of conceptual maps for the QSAR model generation and QSAR prediction processes and the definition and implementation of modular workflows based on atomistic molecular dynamics for the simulation of the properties of polymer-based coatings on surfaces related to BIO-SUSHY use cases.
Furthermore SSbD criterion for safety assessment are established and first collection of information about the intrinsic hazardous properties of the chemical substances used to formulate BIO-SUSHY coatings together with experimental screening tests of coatings components provided preliminary results on the first and second steps of SSbD framework while Life Cycle Assessment of the coatings has started.
The SSbD-driven coatng development is supported by design and implementation of computational tools related to materials simulations, the collection, harmonization, FAIRification and data management based on extraction of the data from partner-specific files, the mapping of the data onto a harmonized BIO-SUSHY (meta)data schema, and enrichment with information from external public sources through automatic workflows; the development of conceptual maps for the QSAR model generation and QSAR prediction processes and the definition and implementation of modular workflows based on atomistic molecular dynamics for the simulation of the properties of polymer-based coatings on surfaces related to BIO-SUSHY use cases.
Furthermore SSbD criterion for safety assessment are established and first collection of information about the intrinsic hazardous properties of the chemical substances used to formulate BIO-SUSHY coatings together with experimental screening tests of coatings components provided preliminary results on the first and second steps of SSbD framework while Life Cycle Assessment of the coatings has started.
The results of the BIO-SUSHY project cover the SSbD-driven development of innovative bio-based coating materials for water- and oil repellency without PFAS validated through targeted market value chains. The developed SSbD approaches, specifically targeted to bio-based coatings, are set to contribute to new policy recommendations and standardization. The characterization of the SSbD risk classifications requires a considerable amount of experimental data. The computational tools developed during the project will ensure the re-utilization of existing experimental data and the use of QSAR models to fill the data gaps, obtaining as much information as possible for the materials of interest. BIO-SUSHY is contributing to the definition of the criteria in terms of safety and sustainability needed for the development of strategies applied to novel coatings. The applicability and performance of these strategies beyond the state will be further demonstrated for the value chains covered by BIO-SUSHY, ultimately constituting a framework applicable to novel coatings materials that do not contain hazardous additives.