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SUSTAINCOMP – Development of sustainable composite materials

The project aims at developing new types of sustainable composite materials for a wide range of applications and has the ambition to integrate today’s large enterprises on the raw material and end-use sides. (e.g. pulp mills and packaging manufacturers) and small and medium sized enterprises on the composite processing side (e.g. compounders and composite manufacturers).

SustainComp is a large scale collaborative project financed by the European Commission. The project involves 17 partners around Europe. 

SINTEF is a contributer in work package 2 which is coordinated by EPFL and will develop processes for design of cellular composites based on renewable resources. A variety of foam structures will be produced, whose solid phase is a polymer (e.g. PLA, starch based, PHA, PHB), nanocellulose and/or wood-based fibre biocomposite. Activities range from foaming fundamentals and the use of composite commingled preforms to the definition of process windows for continuous processing. Applications are in the fields of packaging, insulation, display and core materials.

Work package 3 is coordinated by SINTEF and will develop processes for the design of advanced light-weight biocomposite material-based demonstrators with industrially desired properties and design features. Such high performance concepts will open up for new advanced applications of wood-based fibre composites. Activities range from material formulations (pelletising, fibre/fibril handling), commingling-based compounding and processing, and extruder-based processing to micromechanics and modelling. Fields of application for the developed materials include furniture, advanced packaging, safety, health and vehicle applications.

Funded under 7th FWP (Seventh Framework Programme)
Hosting organisation: INNVENTIA AB

Key Factors

Project duration

01/09/2008 - 31/08/2012

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