FibreNet
The common goal is finding comprehensive solutions to improve and tailor the properties of fibre products. This would enable new environmentally friendly products and products with totally new functionalities. The focus is mainly on biobased fibres, either natural or man-made in origin.
FibreNet is an umbrella project for 15 individual research projects in the field of fibres. The goals of the umbrella project are:
- to generate common goals for the multidisciplinary fibre-research within the consortium—and to oversee the attainment of the goals,
- to structure doctoral training in bio-based fibres and to offer scientific and transferable skills training,
- to build a strong and active network of fibre-professionals from different application areas,
- to share the expertise and know-how across different disciplines, and
- to promote the exploitation of the results generated in FibreNet.
The common thread in all our research and educational efforts is sustainability.
Timeline: 01/08/2018 - 31/07/2021
Contact: Matin Rostamitabar or Carlos García Velásquez
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FibreNet seeks for solutions that are suited in different application areas and guarantee the suitability, working together with experts from three growing sectors of biobased industry: biocomposites, paper and packaging materials and medical textiles.
FibreNet is an innovative EU-funded H2020-MSCA-ITN project that trains PhDs in the field of biobased fibres. A consortium of 15 European academic and industrial organisations together strive to bridge the knowledge-gap between the properties of fibres and fibre-based products in order to enable product tailoring, products with new functionalities and brand-new fibre products.
Research project UM: Porous aerogel microfibres: development of a novel multi-functional wound dressing (ESR 4)
Nowadays, there is no single treatment in order to fulfil all requirements of wound healing process. Thus, designing a multi-functional dressing holds considerable promises to cover this gap. The main goal of the project is to develop a novel wound dressing scaffold with consecutive overlapping release profiles of bio-active components to promote the four phases of wound healing. The structure of the nano-porous network inside the cellulose/polysaccharide aerogel fibers will be tuned based on the release profile of each bio-active agent that will be covering a particular phase of the healing process. Once the fibers are fabricated, coating techniques will be applied to charge the pores inside the fibers having different morphological characteristics with relevant bio-active components. Finally, the release profile of each component will be evaluated in-vitro and the wound healing functionality of the dressing will be assessed in an in-vivo wound healing model.
Research project UM: Life cycle assessment of bio-based fibre products (ESR 5)
The FibreNet project takes a multidisciplinary approach to develop bio-based fibre products with properties that are comparable or superior to fossil-based products in terms of price, performance, and environmental benefits. Bio-based products have great potential to reduce CO2 emissions; however, bio-based products are not per definition superior to fossil-based materials in terms of environmental impact. The impact does not solely depend on the resource and needs to be assessed over the whole life cycle of the product. The environmental impacts of products are typically quantified through the internationally standardized LCA methodology. However, in its current state this methodology does not fulfil the needs to assess the life cycles of biobased fibre products. Therefore, we propose to further develop the LCA methodology to include critical aspects for the assessment of bio-based products, such as accounting for biogenic carbon storage, biodiversity change, cascading use of biomass, land use change, and end of life options, including biodegradation. Furthermore, bio-based products are relatively new to the market when compared to current fossil products, so it is important to not only assess the current situation but also to analyze future scenarios to show the potential of new and improved bio-based fibre products.