Eco-Friendly Additives to Enhance Biodegradability of Conventional Plastics

Overview

NAMI’s eco-friendly additives can be incorporated into conventional plastics to enhance their biodegradability.

  • Eco-Friendly Additives to Enhance Biodegradability of Conventional Plastics
Commercialisation opportunities
Non-exclusive licensing
Problem addressed

Plastics take extremely long time — hundreds of years — to biodegrade, causing serious environmental pollution. NAMI's innovative additive can be incorporated into conventional plastics to accelerate their anaerobic degradation.

Innovation
  • Being incorporated into conventional plastics like polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), etc., NAMI's additive can attract effective microbes to the plastics' surface to accelerate their anaerobic degradation. 
  • Products incorporated with NAMI’s additive show similar mechanical properties as those without.
Key impact
  • Remarkably increase the biodegradation rate of conventional plastics
  • Food contact safe and creates no microplastic
  • Compatible with existing plastic manufacturing processes such as injection moulding, blow moulding and thermoforming
  • Same application as common plastic additives
Award
  • Silver Medal at the “2022 Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions”
Application
  • Conventional plasticware manufactured by common processes
  • Both disposable and reusable plasticware
Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI)

Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) is founded in 2000 by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. As Hong Kong’s largest government-funded research and development centre, ASTRI is a key force and super connector driving innovation and technology advancement in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and the global innovation ecosystem. This role is strengthened through its merger with Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (NAMI).

Committed to bringing high impact research from lab to market, ASTRI advances interdisciplinary, market driven R&D that delivers practical innovations for industry and meaningful benefits for society.

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