Plinius Labs

From sunscreen to Vanilla: green innovations from Plinius Labs

Did you know that the minerals in eggshells can protect you from UV rays? And that's why you can even use them to make sunscreen? It is only 1 of the green projects with which Plinius Labs is involved. This chemistry laboratory in Aalter is looking for sustainable alternatives for polluting substances in the cosmetics, food and materials sectors.

Conscious production thanks to biorefinery
From a jar of mayonnaise to the mascara in your bathroom cabinet: most food and cosmetic products are full of petrochemicals. Think preservatives, flavor enhancers or dyes. These substances are not only harmful to your health, they also pollute our environment. Plinius Labs is therefore taking a different approach with biorefinery. With that process, they extract fractions from biomass from agricultural side streams and side streams from foodtech. They convert these into sustainable formulations and marketable products.

Local agricultural side streams as a sustainable alternative
In addition to sunscreen from eggshells, Plinius Labs develops natural vanillin through the patented AMPLE process. That flavoring gives the recognizable vanilla taste to chocolate, ice cream and beverages. In most cases, vanillin is synthetic and derived from petrochemical processes, which makes production cheaper but the product less healthy. An alternative output of AMPLE is pale lignin, which has UV-absorbing and preservative properties due to its cosmetic quality.

By using local agricultural residues, that innovative AMPLE process offers a sustainable and economically viable solution.