•New

Drywall used in construction, expanded polystyrene used in the transport of food and medicinal products, and resin in interior vehicle panels are some of the materials that will be replaced by Biprocel in the medium term. “In the near future, the law will require that recycled materials account for 20% of all material used in the construction, renovation, transport, and logistics sectors,” says Margarita Calafell, the researcher who heads UPC-Barcelona Tech’s Enzymatic Catalysis Laboratory in Terrassa, the birthplace of Biprocel, which is an acronym for “biotechnological process on cellulose.”

The new material, which has already been patented, is obtained through biotechnological processing of cellulose waste. Biotechnology methods are used to recycle paper, cardboard, wood, and “any other material that contains a significant percentage of cellulose,” says Calafell.

According to Calafell, “it all started when we were working with a graphic arts company that needed to get ISO accreditation. To meet the required standards, the company had to improve its waste management. We started to work on the handling of paper waste and eventually managed to get the improvement the company was looking for.”

The experience led the researcher to realize that the process could be improved. In June 2008, with the support of a grant from the Catalan Waste Agency and the “drive of the whole team,” they managed to develop a recycling system that uses a biotechnological process, thus minimizing all the elements that have a negative impact on the environment. “Biotechnology simply treats the products as nature would, but with human intervention,” says Margarita Calafell.

Products made of Biprocel have a series of very desirable properties: they are fireproof, waterproof, impact-resistant and lightweight, as well as being thermal and acoustic insulators. These properties make them a very attractive material for a number of sectors, including construction, the automotive sector, transport and packaging, where they are seen as a viable alternative that will soon become essential. For example, the new material could replace drywall, insulating partition walls, and panels used for soundproofing and false ceilings. The fact that Biprocel is moldable means it can also be used as a packaging material in place of expanded polystyrene and other petroleum-based products.

The process for obtaining Biprocel has four key features: it does not require the use of chemical products; there is no loss of material, so a kilogram of Biprocel is produced for each kilogram of waste; it does not produce waste products, because the water used is recycled; and the amount of energy consumed is much lower than when chemical processes are used to transform cellulose-containing materials.

According to Margarita Calafell, “the new technique we've developed for this material makes it possible to modify the properties of any kind of waste from cellulosic materials, such as paper, wood waste, and cotton.”

A company that goes by the same name as the product—Biotechnological Process on Cellulose—was set up In January of this year, with UPC-Barcelona Tech as one of its shareholders. Biprocel will manufacture and market the new material because “no one understands the distinctive characteristics of the product better than we do, and we haven't found any company that has all the capabilities required to produce Biprocel.” The new material will come on the market in six months, “when the production process has been automated; so far testing has been carried out in the laboratory or using a ‘hand-made’ approach,” says the researcher.

It is estimated that penetration of target markets will reach a level of between 2% and 10% in five years. This translates into a production volume of 2700 metric tons in the fifth year.