Valencia (EFE).- Bacterial cellulose developed from orange peel, low-cost kits to detect listeria and E-Coli in industry in two hours or a project to improve the transport of batteries by sea are some of the technologies that will be exhibited on June 29 at the Itene TechShow, an event that seeks to focus on progress “for a safer and more sustainable world”.
With this forum, organized by the Technological Center for Packaging, Transport and Logistics (Itene), which is part of the Network of Technological Institutes of the Valencian Community (Redit), the aim is to “make technology tangible, so that it can be experienced” result of the projects, including a fortnight paid for by the Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (Ivace) through FEDER funds.
This was detailed in an interview with EFE by the managing director of Itene, Javier Zabaleta, who explained that the event will consist of presentations by representatives of companies such as Ikea, IMED or Plásticos Guadalaviar, a technology “showroom” and an area of meetings.
It will be located in the Scale Up building in Itene, a new space in this technology center built with an investment of 4 million euros, in which a “pre-industrial level scaling center” will be installed to “be able to demonstrate to the industry that it can invest in these technologies, which are applicable to their usual practices”.
“At Itene, we focus on three lines: looking for new, more sustainable materials, new technologies for recycling containers and packaging, and new ways of valorizing industrial waste,” he assured.
Detect Listeria and E-Coli saving time and money
Among the projects financed by Ivace that will be exhibited is Biotsens, a low-cost analysis kit that allows detecting the presence of Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli bacteria in food or surfaces, a development of particular importance for the industry.
“The industry normally carries out these analyzes using external laboratory teams that go to the company, take samples, take them to the laboratory and respond within 24 or 48 hours”, explained Zabaleta, who added that ” the items analyzed have to remain in stock and cannot be put on sale until the result arrives”.
But the technology developed by Itene is not only cheaper than the traditional model, but also allows results to be obtained in two or three hours, which gives rise to “the possibility of much earlier warning”.
The managing director of the center anticipates that it can be exportable and can even be used in hospitals or detect other pathogens such as salmonella.
Improve battery transportation
Another of Itene’s research axes is transport and mobility, and that is why in its TechShow they will present the Transbatt project, which seeks to improve the transport of batteries for electric and hybrid cars by sea by monitoring a means of transport that is “the great unknown”, much less studied than the railway or the truck.
These types of objects, sometimes made of lithium and classified as dangerous goods because they can catch fire, are exposed during transport to “vibrations, shocks, falls, a certain temperature and humidity”, conditions that Itene replicates in the laboratory to anticipate if a load will arrive in good condition at its destination.
Orange peel for biopolymers
On the other hand, giving a second life to orange peel waste is possible with the Itene Valocel project, which will also be at the TechShow, and with which it has been possible to develop bacterial cellulose that can be used for product packaging of feeding.
The project collects the skins of this citrus and extracts the sugars, which are the raw material that, once consumed by microorganisms, results in this cellulose, which according to Zabaleta “will not replace paper, but has interesting applications and a market to develop in the food industry”.
Recycle “irrecoverable” plastic
Compostable containers and packaging are the focus of Itene projects such as Compolist or Extrech Up: the first seeks compostable materials with tailor-made properties for containers of fresh vegetables, salads and prepared dishes, and the second tries to improve the properties of the films used in contact with the food or from the bottles of drugstore products.
“We found that many compostable containers on the market lack barrier or thermal properties so that they keep the products well,” explained the manager of this technology center, who predicts that these materials will be extended to “cosmetic, shampoo, or capsule containers coffee, among other things.
The RecyPET project was also born from this environmental concern, which seeks to develop new chemical and enzyme recycling processes for use in monolayer, multilayer and colored PET plastics that are currently unrecoverable.
“Today, PET is not being recycled to a large extent due to lack of technology,” said Zabaleta, who denounced that “sometimes, recycled PET is more expensive than virgin PET and, although the industry wants to use recycled plastic , there is not enough supply in the market”.
For this reason, at the TechShow, Itene seeks “a paradigm shift” and demonstrate “the applicability of technologies” so that companies “see that they are viable and can adopt them”. EFE