Aimplas turns poultry feather waste into sustainable foams suitable for hydroponic crop systems. Aimplas is working on the development of new foams made with poultry feathers for sustainable hydroponic crop systems within the framework of Unlock, an initiative funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This is just one of the developments made within the European Unlock project to boost the sustainable circular bioeconomy.

Unlock proposes manufacturing bioplastics and biotextiles from feather keratin, which have properties that can give the final product new functionalities, such as a biodegradation capacity adjusted to crop duration, providing the soil with organic nitrogen, not generating waste at the end of their life cycle and being cost competitive.

With the assistance of Terra Aquatica, Aimplas is responsible for the development and validation of one of the project products: foams for hydroponic crop systems. Hydroponics is a practice that allows vegetables to be grown directly in contact with a nutrient solution in an environment without soil.