Concept and objectives
In Europe 30-50 % of plastics are used for packaging. The Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste contains provisions for the prevention of packaging waste, the re-use, the recycling and recovery of packaging material. Consequently there is an increasing pressure on the packaging industry to develop environmentally sustainable materials, either by recovery, recycling or biodegradation.
Another critical problem that has to be solved is the development of freon-free polyurethane systems. As it has been proved, freon gases destroy the ozone layer.
Thus in agreement with the requirements of the Montreal Protocol, the use of many freon compounds has been forbidden, and by 2020, the use of freon gases will not allowed anymore.
During the last years the use of vegetal-derived materials (wood flour, plant fibres, reprocessed cotton) has shown continuous growth. The drivers for this trend are the cost savings, weight reduction and recyclability: in the last years cost efficient technologies has been developed to manufacture vegetal based composite as a result.

The forest biomass represents an abundant, renewable, no-food competition and low cost resource that can play an alternative role to petro-resources. The production and use of forest biomass energy is greenhouse neutral while the expansion of plantation forestry is a positive benefit to greenhouse gas reduction through increasing the forests as a carbon sink.
Multiple aims of Forbioplast are:

- Valorisation of forest resources for the production of biobased products.
- Identification of the best ways for industrial exploitation of forest biomass at the European scale.
- Development of improved technologies with regard to the present industrial synthesis of polyurethane and target of an industrial scale up of the process.
- Replacement of glass fibres and mineral fillers with wood derived fibres in automotive interior and exterior parts.
- Development of biodegradable polymer/ wood derived fibres composites for application in the packaging and agriculture sector.
- Production of polyurethane from materials based on forest resources.

The forest biomass represents an abundant, renewable, no-food competition and low cost resource that can play an alternative role to petro-resources. In spite of positive experimental results industrial production and marketing of materials derived from renewable resources are rarely achieved because of high processing costs and low properties of final products usually targeted to single use sectors devoted to very low costs polymer.
Aims of the present proposal are the differentiate utilizations of forest raw resources or byproducts of forest connected industry for the production of eco-compatible foams and composites suitable for many practical applications with particular attention at the packaging, agriculture and automotive sectors. One topic of the research activity will be focused on the use of wood and paper mill by-products (bark, chips, sawdust, and black liquor) as raw materials for the production of polyurethane foams by an innovative sustainable synthetic process with reduced energy consumption.
Wood fibres can be used as natural fillers to replace synthetic and glass fibres in composites production. Loading of wood fibres is limited by difficult compatibility with hydrophobic polymers. Research activity will be devoted to the production of composites based on wood fibres with biodegradable polymeric matrices (polylactic acid, polycaprolactone, polyhydroxyalkanoates, materbi, etc) and with polypropylene. A high fibre content will be achieved by increasing toughness of polymeric matrices. Forest waste valorisation will be achieved by microbiological process.
Materials production will be valuated by life cycle assessment and final products will be tested for biodegradation and composting. Composites will be as well evaluated for applications in agriculture, packaging and automotive (textile, panels, interior components). Research activity will be developed in strict cooperation with industries with particular reference to the end users.

Polyurethanes (PUs) are one of the most useful three-dimensional polymers because they can be used in various forms of materials such as sheets, foams, elastomers, adhesives and paints, etc. Polymerization reaction is started by the hydroxyl groups usually constituted by synthetic diols, triols, tetraols such as diethylenglycol, 1,4-buthanediol, neopentilic glycol, or 1,6-exadiol, glycerine or 2,2-bis(hydroxymethyl)-propanediol. Isocyanate and alcohol react to produce polyurethane. Previous research on Polyurethane by renewable resources mainly focuses on the use of natural polyols derived from vegetable oils such as soybeans oil via epoxidation followed by hydroxylation; polyols were then reacted with diphenylmethane diisocyanate (DMI) to produce polyurethane. Materials derived by forest resources are also valuable, for example lignin and tall oil as by-products of pulp and paper industry can be used for the production of polyurethane. FORBIOPLAST will promote the production of Freon free polyurethane and polyurethane-polyureic foams derived from lignin-based materials by an oxidative reaction performed at room temperature and in the absence of any catalyst.
Bio-composites, or more specifically the "green composites," consist of bio-fibre and matrices of bio-plastic from renewable resources and are expected to be biodegradable and maintain carbon dioxide neutrality. Polymer composites filled with different forest-derived fibres present significant differences in properties but in all cases four factors determine the behaviour and properties of the composites: properties of the components, composition, structure, interaction, Properties of composites can be modified by the proper selection of these factors and composites with desired characteristics can be prepared.
In lignocellulosic fibres modification by biological means biopulping of wood has been performed using the white rot fungus Ceriporiopsis subvermispora and various fungi have been used for defibration of flax, but the produced fibres have not been tested as reinforcement agents in composite materials. For enzymatic fibre extraction, a combination of enzymes such as pectinases, hemicellulases and cellulases are generally used with a pre- or postchemical treatment and recently, multienzyme complexes that can express 10-15 enzyme activities and provide better fibre quality have been developed. FORBIOPLAST will apply fungi and enzymes for wood fibres modification.
Mechanical properties of composites can be improved by addition of natural rubber and of small amount of nanoclays that is a specific research topic at UNIPI. FORBIOPLAST will apply and develop the theory by Lazzeri and Bucknall based on the preparation of different types of composites of amorphous and crystalline polymers with nanosized CaCO3 and submicron BaSO4 particles surface treated with stearic acid and other commercially available surfactants that support the view that if agglomerates can be eliminated by a careful choice of the surfactant, very small particles can be extremely effective toughening agents by promoting the formation of microvoids without collapsing into Griffith-like cracks by void coalescence.
Blending and/or compounding with fillers and processing aids can confer particular performances to the polyurethanes and biocomposites. For example materials developed for automotive applications will be loaded with inorganic nanoparticles to acquire functional properties such as noise reduction (barite), flame retardant (monmorillonite MMT), improved toughness (elastomers, nanoclays). Materials developed for applications in agriculture will be enriched with active substances (fertilizers, etc), and the active components in materials with intended application in packaging will be selected in view of the final specific use (food packaging, goods packaging) of the material.

Forbioplast is structured in 12 work packages (WP) with the aim to reach the targeted objectives. WP1 is focused on the definition of the required specification, WP2-10 are based on different technical tasks, WP11 is related to the exploitation, dissemination and marketing of the results, and WP 12 is devoted to project coordination and management.