A promising new material, set to transform certain types of manufacturing and prevent many tonnes of plastic pollution in our seas, has been developed in Bath. The Bath University start-up, NaturBeads, were the winners of the Environmental and Sustainability Award at the BathLive Business Awards due to the potential importance of their innovation for conservation.
However, while the technology could also be a really big deal for Bath’s economy and Britain’s exports, BusinessLive has learned that manufacturing might move abroad due to Britain leaving the European Union (EU).
NaturBeads, a company based in the Chemical Engineering department of the University of Bath, has developed a product which is able to replace small plastic beads used to make cosmetics, paints, adhesives in manufacturing processes across the world.
The material, a form of cellulose like the cell walls of plant or animal cells, and the fibre that we eat, is not so flexible for manufacturing as starch which can be adapted to make films and carrier bags similar to plastic bags, but it is much stronger. Both starch and cellulose are made from polysaccharides - chains of sugar molecules, which is why they are both completely biodegradable but cellulose cannot be melted, moulded or stretched into a film.
Instead, the team has pioneered techniques to form the cellulose into spherical shapes pioneering a new process called membrane emulsification which they have used for the very first time.
“Naturbeads is a ‘cleantech’ start-up working on the commercialisation of an innovative manufacturing process,” said the chief executive, Giovanna Laudisio.
"We want to produce cellulose microspheres in a sustainable and cost-efficient way. Our cellulose microspheres have been successfully tested in cosmetics, paints, adhesive, leather products and other consumers and industrial applications to replace polluting plastic microspheres.
“The recognition that comes from winning an award like BathLive Business Award is really helpful to increase our visibility and reach more companies looking for a solution to reduce their environmental impact and become more sustainable.
“Our next step is to find the right industrial partners and investors to help us accelerate our path to commercialization and deliver on our mission to prevent hundreds of thousands of tons of microplastics from being released into the environment.”
The company is now commercialising the process to form microspheres, aka microbeads, to replace plastic microbeads used in cosmetics, paints, adhesives, and in life science applications like biocatalysis and cell scaffolding.
NaturBeads is already one of Bath’s success stories in the sense of pioneering research, and has the potential to be a great commercial success in Bath, there is a danger that the next phase of development will happen in mainland Europe.
A source close to the project revealed that since the main suppliers and customers for the technology are within the EU, it would make more sense to manufacture the beads in a country with no borders or tariff barriers with Europe.
Speaking in Italian, Ms Laudisio was very enthusiastic about the plans to build trial manufacturing capability before scaling up to industrial quantities.
“Initially we only want to make 20 tonnes per year,” she added, “which is nothing at all compared with the production volumes of plastic beads which we want to substitute.”
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