SATISPHACTION project has been awarded in 2025 with 3,7 mill euros budget in the highly competitive EIC pathfinder call: PATHFINDER CHALLENGE "Nature inspired alternatives for food packaging and films for agriculture”, funded by the European Commission through the European Innovation Council (EIC). 

Conventional, fossil fuel-based plastics have a high carbon footprint and degrade poorly, causing significant environmental harm. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a biodegradable and renewable alternative, but their high cost and processing challenges restrain widespread use. To address these limitations, the EIC-funded SATISPHACTION project seeks the development of groundbreaking chemical and biotic upcycling processes. The project will leverage on the use of computer-aided development processes and AI to obtain PHAs with enhanced properties, leading to formulations less reliant on additivation and blending to meet the processability requirements. Furthermore, the project will explore the integration of stable thermostable enzymes for accelerated self-degradation to avoid microplastic generation in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Such developments will be validated by the elaboration of three food packaging prototypes: thermoformed trays, flexible thermosealable sachets and bio adhesives. This novel upcycling approach will afford cost-effective and fully biodegradable PHA plastic packaging. 

SATISPHACTION is a 4-year project coordinated by Ainia and involves 9 partners from 5 different European countries: France, UK, Belgium, Portugal and Spain. The consortium blends the scientific and technical expertise provided by universities and R&D centres (AINIA, the Margarita Salas Centre for Biological Research CIB-CSIC, NOVA University Lisbon, King’s College London and NAITEC) and the support of innovative plastic companies (Natureplast and Polykey), sustainability certification experts (Normec OWS) and packaging industry representatives (Packaging Cluster).  

The capabilities developed in the project include:  

• Chemical and enzymatic upcycling of biopolymers 

• Biopolymer recycling in living cell systems 

• Strain engineering for microbial fermentation and downstream processing 

• AI-assisted polymer discovery 

• Organocatalysed polymerisation of digitally-designed iPHAs  

• Compounding with thermostable enzymes for accelerated biodegradation 

• Bioadhesives and bioplastics formulation 

• SSbD for food packaging use cases 

• Biodegradation analysis in marine, freshwater and soil simulated conditions 

• eLCA, sLCA and LCC  

• Food law compliance 

 The project starting the 1st of October 2025 will impact the bioplastics production sector with circular and cost-effective alternatives to fossil-carbon plastics reducing the dependency on non-renewable sources and strengthens the competitiveness of European industry. The results will contribute to reduce carbon emissions, prevent the generation of microplastics and avoid the presence of chemicals of concern, such as endocrine disruptors, in the food chain.