The overall goal of the Innorex Project was to develop a novel reactor concept using alternative energies for the continuous, highly precise, metal-free polymerisation of PLA. Metal-containing catalysts was replaced by organic catalysts. These have been shown to efficiently control the polymerisation of lactide, but their activity must have been still improved to meet industrial standards. This was achieved by the low-intensity but highly-targeted application of alternative energies (microwaves, ultrasound, laser light). These energies increase catalyst activity and enable precise control of the reaction by exciting only small parts of the reaction mixture without response time.
The project is one of the relevant initiatives supporting the development and uptake of bio-based products at European and regional level identified by BIOWAYS. They have collaborated with BIOWAYS by providing valuable insights into their work and meaningful evidence and information regarding a series of areas such as their expected outputs and market uptake, the legislation and policy framework that affects them, the user’s perspective on their outputs and the impact, visibility and exploitation potential of their project/outputs.