BIO-SUSHY’s M24 Meeting in Valencia with External Advisory Board
Hosted by ITENE at its state-of-the-art facility in Paterna, Valencia, the BIO-SUSHY consortium had its Month 24 Annual Meeting with the External Advisory Board on February 5, 2025. Over 30 experts from academia, industry, and EU institutions convened to review our progress toward safer, sustainable materials.
Key Highlights from Day 1
- Project Overview & Collaborative Vision
The day opened with a warm welcome from ITENE and a comprehensive project overview by our Coordinator, Dr. Mireille Poelman from Materia Nova. The session reaffirmed the project’s mission to replace fossil-based and PFAS-containing coatings in food paper packaging, textiles, and glass cosmetics packaging with bio-based alternatives.
The second part of the day was divided into the project’s three case studies.
- Case Studies Sessions
For each case study, partners presented each facet of the technial development including formulation of bio-based components and sol-gel chemistry, application, SSbD, modelling, toxicology assessment, standardization roadmap, and exploitation pathways.
- PFAS-Free Polymer Coating for Paper Food Trays (Led by Wood K Plus): Partners showcased the current developments about our coating achieving grease resistance and water repellency, which will be validated through pilot trials by using a novel thermoforming process.
- Hybrid Sol-Gel Coating for Cosmetic Glass Packaging (Led by Materia Nova): Water- and stain-resistant hybrid sol-gel for luxury cosmetics, praised for its ability to limit the product waste.
- Textile Coatings (Led by Applus+Rescoll): A sol-gel coating with repellent properties for textile. The coating is able to provide soft touch and washing resistance features.
- Interactive Q&A & Networking
A lively panel discussion with the external advisory board addressed challenges in scaling such PFAS-free technologies, emphasizing cross-sector collaboration.
Day 2: Strategic Planning and Future Roadmaps
The second day of BIO-SUSHY’s Month 24 Annual Meeting at ITENE’s headquarters shifted focus to targeted Work Package meetings, strategic roadmaps, cross-project collaboration, and actionable steps towards our upcoming milestone of M30 on the second intermediate validation of our coatings in combination with the end of the second reporting period.
Key Highlights from Day 2
- Work Package Progress & Synergies
- WP1 (Value Chain Analysis): Partners highlighted critical insights from Deliverable 1.3, emphasizing design guidelines for bio-based coatings in food, cosmetics, and textiles.
- WP2 (Coating Development): A detailed 6-month plan was unveiled to optimize additive synthesis and scale formulations.
- WP3 (Computational Tools): Updates on the BIO-SUSHY project’s computational tools, including the QSAR model development and optimization, computational modeling tools to simulate coating performance, and BIO-SUSHY instance maps.
- WP4 (Safety & Sustainability): Updates on lifecycle assessments (LCAs) and alignment with sister projects like SSbD4Chem underscored the project’s holistic approach.
- ITENE Facility Tour
The consortium explored the state-of-the-art ITENE laboratories, witnessing firsthand the advanced technologies and equipments employed by ITENE, also in assessing toxicology and safety.
- Exploitation & Standardization
Attendees explored ITENE’s labs from the printing, analytical, and toxicology.
- WP5 (Exploitation & Dissemination & Standardization): Key Exploitable Results (KERs) were reviewed alongside an IP management strategy. The team also reviewed the communication and dissemination KPIs, and the plans for fast-tracking standardization of our PFAS-free coatings.
Conclusion & Next Steps
The coordinator closed the meeting by outlining priorities for the final project phase and upcoming events.
