On February 28th, 2024, Dr. Virender Kumar, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Associate Prof. Cristiano Varrone at Aalborg University, participated as a speaker at the 2ND ANNUAL WORLD BIOPOLYMERS AND BIOPLASTICS INNOVATION FORUM in the Netherlands. At this conference, scientists across disciplines (biologists, polymer chemists) as well as business owners, and companies from the field of biopolymers and bioplastics present their views and advances in the field.

In the UPLIFT project, Virender Kumar is working on developing robust enzyme production platforms for plastic-degrading enzymes to depolymerize various petro-plastics and bio-based plastics. At the conference, he talked about his work on depolymerization of PEF using polyester hydrolases. There, he showed the effect of different reaction variables on enzymatic depolymerization of PEF powder and films. He also participated in a panel discussion on the need and future of bio-based plastics.

2ND ANNUAL WORLD BIOPOLYMERS AND BIOPLASTICS INNOVATION FORUM 2024 was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands (28-29 February 2024) with a focus on biopolymer applications at an industrial scale.