Bi-rex: from food waste to cellulose. Thanks to two researchers from the Polytechnic University of Milan.

Greta Colombo Dugoni and Monica Ferro, founder of Bi-rex, met in the hallways of the Chemistry Department and have been inseparable ever since: one an expert in green solvents, the other in cellulose. Now they produce biopolymers from rice waste and shrimp shells.

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bi-rex project

Cellulose and chitin are two of the most common and important structural biopolymers in nature: the former is capable of forming the structure of plant cells, wood, and plant fibers, the latter is capable of forming the shells of invertebrates. Although these polysaccharides are used extensively in the pharmaceutical and agricultural fields as organic fertilizers, and in the textile industry, their extraction is often environmentally unsustainable.

The abundance of cellulose and chitin in nature is staggering: if we're talking about the latter alone, it's a key component of shrimp shells, discarded by the shellfish industry in tons, a total of approximately 8 million tons worldwide each year. This is a huge source of chitin: so why not develop a method to extract it, along with cellulose, by reusing food waste and avoiding harm to the planet?

ALSO READ: To make plastic, you need milk. This is the invention of a team of young researchers from Rome.

BI-REX PROJECT

Two very young researchers from the Polytechnic University of Milan thought about it, meeting in the Chemistry Department and combining their expertise to develop the Bi-rex project. Just like a chemical reaction: Greta Colombo Dugoni, 28, was passionately studying bio-solvent materials, while Monica Ferro, 37, was pursuing projects already related to cellulose. Their meeting gave birth to a project to recycle waste materials such as brewery waste, rice waste and shrimp shells, to obtain completely green and non-toxic cellulose or chitin, ready to be used as raw materials in the industrial sector.

Bi-rex was designed with a circular economy in mind, giving new life to agricultural and processing waste from agri-food companies that would otherwise be incinerated or disposed of at high management costs. Furthermore, it avoids particularly polluting and energy-intensive extraction processes that use toxic and hazardous solvents or non-eco-friendly chemical reagents.

The two founders of the Bi-rex project haven't yet formed a startup, but thanks to Polihub, the university's accelerator, and their professor Andrea Mele, who has been mentoring them for about a year and a half, they won a prize and received €160 in funding to continue. Out of respect for the environment, they explain: "We're especially interested in producing paper without deforestation. It would be a sign of change. Polihub is helping us develop the business: we've been working on it for a year and a half and are developing it to scale up to an industrial scale."

(Featured image taken from the website of Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of the Polytechnic of Milan)

The Bi-rex project is in competition for the 2020 edition of the Non Sprecare Award. To submit your projects, follow the instructions provided here. 

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