MILAN – Sustainability and creativity. Along the cornerstones of these two coordinates have developed some of the most important projects carried out by NextMaterials: innovative solutions to high vocation green intended to break new ground in research and development of materials, finishes and treatments at a high technological level.
Spin-off of the national Inter-University Consortium for science and technology of materials (INSTM), NextMaterials was founded in 2011 by the will of three members from the academic world to promote the transfer of research to the production world. Since its foundation has consolidated various business segments, ready to move to full operational status of autonomy: by providing solutions with various features such as photocatalysis, antibacterial and self-cleaning (also applicable to tissues), the creation of filters to ensure the purification air and improvement of conservation in food safety, up to intelligent packaging development.
“our main goal is to innovatively support academic research, ‘he says Professor Alberto Cigada , one of the founding members of NextMaterials. “That’s why we reinvest most of our revenues in research contracts with universities and support to young researchers; one of the purposes of the spin-off is in fact to enable young PhD students / postdocs the opportunity to continue the activities developed in their case, so as to finalize it to the industrial transfer. ” The Milan spin-off does not distribute profits and aims the sale of those business units that have reached “maturity” entrepreneurial; The basic purpose is precisely to “preindustrializzare” the results of academic research and transfer them to real industrial world, so as not to waste them, but turn them into funding for a new search.
Looking patent
Just in terms of next-generation packaging, NextMaterials is investing most of its resources in terms of research, development and innovation, with a deep underlying belief: a truly sustainable packaging It must have a unique recycling channel. ‘The materials used today for packaging have environmental sustainability issues unresolved, “says Cigada. “This stems from the fact that in many cases the packagings are produced with more than one material. We think only to those of a television or any other appliance: we find the corrugated cardboard of the outer box, the expanded polystyrene for internal fillings, sheets of polyethylene bubble, plastic components varies, all materials that follow different paths of separate collection , often not easily detectable. In this perspective, we are rather accustomed to seeing from time to recycle cartons, newspapers and magazines, and this even before the term “recyclable” became common; sustainability is ensured by the fact that recycling is simply “throw” the pieces discarded into the appropriate bins, present a few meters from each home. “
From these considerations was born the interest of NextMaterials for the development of a high environmental sustainability composite material, made of 50% of cellulose fiber obtained by paper / recycled cardboard and the remaining 50% of a polymeric matrix ; called Poly-paper and is made without taking fertile soil for agriculture, it is precisely in the chain recyclable paper / cardboard (always the most common), is characterized by high rigidity (triple compared to conventional polymeric materials), you can process with all the traditional technologies of polymer processing and is completely water-soluble. “A new high-performance material that is an achievement of which we are very proud of and for which we filed in co-ownership with the Politecnico di Milano a patent application, both Italian and international level. If this patent is granted, it will be necessary to find a suitable partner to industrialize the material; because, as the possible uses of digital printing we always say, “Technology transfer is our dream”. “
In collaboration with a company specialized in food packaging, the spin-off is also studying to high speed . The traditional flexographic printing technologies allow to realize packagings all equal to each other, while the very high speed digital printing (a few meters per second) theoretically allows the production of millions of packs different from each other. This will ensure the packaging not only new marketing values, massive customization and loyalty of the consumer, but also to introduce new values related to traceability, food safety and all’anticontraffazione. “This is a field where technology, computing and big data must come up with new and creative synergies,” says Cigada.
water-soluble matrix
Studies of NextMaterials were however not stopped here and decided to go further in the field of 3D printing technology, which also requires innovative solutions with high sustainability characteristics of which are lacking the materials most commonly used today such as Abs (which , as all non-biodegradable polymers, has serious problems of recyclability), the Pla (compostable but not recyclable) and the PVA (used for the construction of water-soluble media, however, is not recyclable, is too sensitive to moisture and presents problems of stability over time).
“our initial idea,” resumed yet Cigada, “it was to develop a 3D printing material made from recycled materials and in turn be recycled . To be able to allocate to “waste” with paper and cardboard was however necessary to use a water-soluble matrix, able to melt in water to form compounds with no risk of toxicity: hence the 3Dpaper, a highly versatile material and “creative”, it equipped with details and innovative features, which presents a low extrusion temperature, a high printing speed (with cold plate and without lacquer), is weldable by wetting with water, sandable after immersion in denatured alcohol, and impermeabilizzabile easily colorable. “
One of the most prominent features is surely represented by the possibility of change even in a complex way the shape of the products printed in 3D thanks to technology that has been called shape memory forming . “The pieces printed in plan may be formed and stiffened with a heat treatment and the material thus obtained precisely acquires shape memory, allowing the realization of objects otherwise impossible to conceive,” concludes Cigada. “After an initial phase of rapid heating to 90 ° C, it can in fact switch to manual modeling during cooling or directly on a backing. Now at room temperature, the material acquires a temporary form, reshaped more times; decided the final one, it can be consolidated with a treatment of two hours at 140 ° C ». And at this point, the creative synthesis between technology, art and sustainability can only be stopped by the limits of human imagination …
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