At the 2023 Rethinking Materials Innovation and Investment Summit that kicked off today in London, seaweed materials company Loliware announced the launch of a new, injection-moulding grade of its seaweed-based resin.
The company has utilised the new material resin to produce its first ever Seaweed Utensil Set, manufactured on standard plastics injection-moulding machinery. Previously, its resins were compatible with existing extrusion equipment. The new injection-moulding grade opens up a host of new applications, the company noted.
"Creating a seaweed resin that was compatible with injection moulding machinery proved to be a challenging task, as seaweed has unique properties and stringent performance requirements had to be met for the resulting parts," said Loliware CTO Dr. Victoria Piunova in her presentation at the Summit earlier today.
Loliware is certified 100% Bio-Based according to ASTM D6866-21.
The new products are on show at the Summit today and tomorrow. The company said the utensils would fill a market gap created by the United Kingdom's recent ban on single-use utensils, and that they represented Loliware's formal launch into the European and U.K. markets. This means their products will be widely available for businesses to purchase or license. At the conference, Loliware also introduced its newest advisory board member Jeff Wooster, the former global sustainability director at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics.