Currently the world of polymeric composite materials is exclusively based on fossil derived components. This fact represents a strong issue, as the non-renewable global oil resources are being exploited year after year, also as a consequence of the ever growing demand for plastics engineering materials. As a concrete answer to the increasing volumes of building and construction materials processed and transformed by industry in almost all sectors, renewable resources need to be exploited in order to reduce the depletion of oil reservoirs, and the associated ecological issues deriving, provided they can grant quality standards comparable with the currently available materials. This approach is fundamental to increase the sustainability of the materials engineering, and to act well in advance with respect to the foreseen raise of fossil resources costs, introducing innovative paradigm of materials, exploiting traditional raw resources thanks to innovative engineering solutions to cost-effectively transform them into viable resources. Such process is expected to further reduce the load on environment related to the treatment and disposal of large volumes of plastic materials (market estimated of 25 Million tons per year, in Europe). The Project goal is to develop new composite structures from renewable materials; namely wood derived cellulose fibres and resins deriving from natural raw materials, as well as the related manufacturing processes for advanced composite components. The focus of WOODY Project is therefore on renewable materials and on structural composites, namely laminates and sandwich panels reinforced with continuous long (wood) fibres processed to obtain textiles based on wood materials, and wood resin.
Project funding:
European Commission Research & Innovation