Innovation Plasturgie Composites

IPC is the Technical Industrial Centre of the French plastics and composites industry, with more than 2500 SMEs directly connected to IPC. As such, IPC is in charge of providing the plastics and composites industry with innovative and high added value facilities and manufacturing pilot lines, cutting edge expertise and services. IPC covers the full industry value chain with its key fields of expertise including design and simulation of parts and processes; advanced injection moulding and tooling; thermoplastics materials; composites materials; plastronics, Circular Economy. Main markets addressed today encompass packaging, automotive, aeronautics, health, connectors, house appliances, horology. Developing new value chains is a key strategic issue with focus e.g. on advanced materials, micro / nanostructured plastic parts, microsystems on plastics; smart composites; multi-materials additive manufacturing.

In the “advanced functional materials” research program line, IPC works on innovative bio-based materials from the development of their formulations, the investigation of the processability and recyclability to the validation of the final properties (food contact properties, barrier properties, etc;) taking into account the normalisation aspect. IPC has a strong experience in collaborative projects with an average of 25 running projects per year. It has previously been coordinating two FP7 projects and is currently coordinating two H2020 Projects.

Role in the project

Mainly, IPC will lead the activities concerning the assessment of the different recycling scenarios for the NENU2PHAR materials as well as the life cycle analysis (LCA). Thereby, the potential for a circular economy approach will be assesed. On the other hand, IPC will also be strongly linked to processing tests and strategies for the new bio-based products using different plastic technologies as multilayer extrusion, injection and thermoforming. Also, IPC will contribute to the characterisation of the PHA-based products regarding physicochemical, mechanical and rheological properties as well as to the process development of eco-designed PHA/starch based high-volume consumer goods. In particular, IPC will lead eco-design activities in order to validate that the NENU2PHAR products will have a lower environmental footprint at end of life than their fossil-based plastic counterparts. In addition, IPC will carry out food contact analysis (safe-by-design analysis) and will actively contribute to the dissemination activities towards the plastic industry. It is expected to establish a reliable and sustainable exploitation strategy that could be applied to the solutions developed in the NENU2PHAR project. Finally, IPC will actively participate in the Project Management Team, IPC will support CEA (the coordinator) as technical coordinator of the project.