Next generation fossil-free hydrogels from Glycolink AB.

Purpose and goal:

The cost of the product will come down when production is scaled up. In this project, we aimed to show that scale-up could be achieved in a way that was safe and sustainable. To this end, we performed quantitative life cycle assessments and safety tests of our product, and used these to optimise our protein production methods.

Then, we commissioned a new round of scaled-up protein production. We were able to identify the process techniques and equipments that offer the safest and most sustainable product, and achieved good yields. Expected results and effects:

The life cycle, sustainability, and safety assessments showed the most highly energy consuming steps in our process, and highlighted areas of concern with our protein production methods. In addition, they helped reveal the fate of certain chemicals used in traditional manufacturing. Moreover, we were able to verify that our new sustainably optimised protein production process generates a product with a good safety profile.

Our expected next step is to generate specific products from the new batch of material, and proceed with skin sensitivity studies. Approach and implementation:

The project used softwares to perform quantitative life cycle assessments of the hydrogel manufacturing process - this allows us to measure for example carbon emissions, energy consumption, water consumption, and the creation of waste that is harmful to the environment. With such detailed information, we were able to re-design some process steps to have a better ecological footprint, while maintaining high yield and product safety.

These aspects were monitored by wet lab work looking at the amount and purity of protein obtained, and the quality of gels we can make.