Polyurethane (PUR) products, which include foams for building, construction, automotive and furniture and bedding, are petroleum-based and usually lack important properties. The need for sustainability in these industries leads to the development of cost-efficient processes and sustainable added-value products from low carbon footprint materials. The main objective of BIOMAT is to establish an Open Innovation Test Bed (TB) for the benefit of industries and SMEs, aiming to facilitate the cross-border partnership and accelerate innovation in nano-enabled bio-based insulation materials for these industries. Through the creation of a Single-Entry Point (SEP), SMEs and other industrial parties will have open access at a competitive price to physical facilities (pilot production lines) and services (characterisation, nanosafety, standardisation/regulation, business/marketing plans as well as technological and business-oriented mentoring) which will be focused on manufacturing and testing of nanoparticle-enabled functional PUR-based foams for the above mentioned industrial sectors. The SEP will follow all EC guidelines related to the establishment of new entities providing services through different testbeds across Europe. BIOMAT ecosystem will cover the entire Value Chain (VC) from fundamental biomaterials and functional nanoparticles to the final products and their proof of concept in an industrial environment, thus accelerating the market uptake of the new nano-enabled sustainable bio-based products. BIOMAT will, therefore, fill the existing gaps in the VC of these industrial sectors, by providing new services and support at different levels the use of such materials in these key industries.

PROTECT aims to introduce to the market One step antimicrobial finish processes for polymeric materials used in i) specialty textiles for public areas and hospitals, ii) water treatment membranes, and iii) implantable medical devices. Compared to main existing manufacturing routes, the proposed one-step coating technologies are simple, fast, and reproducible. For this, PROTECT uses as a starting point four existing pilot lines emanated from high successful FP7 projects SONO, NOVO and BioElectricSurface. PROTECT will upgrade the nanocoating One step process platform comprising: two roll to roll (R2R) pilots (sonochemical and spray coating) for functional textiles production, a R2R thermo-embedding pilot for antibacterial/biofilm preventing water treatment membranes, and a batch sonochemical pilot for antibacterial/antibiofilm/biocompatible medical devices. This platform will cover a wide range of applications due to their specific characteristics by the following objectives: a) Incorporating ‘antibacterial antibiofilm biocompatible novel nanoparticles’(NPs) of the following categories: inorganic (CuxZn1-xO ,5 Ga@C-dots, Si/TiO2 composite) polymer (polypyrrole, PPy)) and biologicals (antibacterial enzymes, functionalized lipids (FSLs), hybrid antibacterials) to obtain ‘biocompatible nanostructured surfaces with antimicrobial and anti-adhesive’ properties. b) Implementing real time characterization methods for monitoring at the nanoscale to characterise relevant materials, process properties and product features for ‘real-time nanoscale characterization’ to ensure ‘reproducibility’ and ‘quality’ of the nano-coated products c) Improving ‘coating efficiency, production capacity, reproducibility, robustness, cost-effectiveness, safety and sustainability’ of the processes in relation to the targeted applications. d) Introducing a Labs Network (PLN) that will include also lab scale processes of the proposed technologies for ‘training and knowledge dissemination.