Composites are widely used across industries making up around 20% of a car’s weight and nearly all of a pleasure boat’s. Traditionally made with glass fibres and non recyclable resin, these materials pose sustainability challenges across major sectors like aerospace, marine, and automotive.

The FLOWER project Flax composites, LOW weight, End of life and Recycling tackled this by developing innovative, bio based composites reinforced with natural flax fibres. These new materials are lightweight, cost effective, and environmentally friendly alternatives to glass fibre, with applications in automotive, marine, and advertising. Designed with a full life cycle approach, they are recyclable or biodegradable at end of life.

As one of four academic partners, the University of Portsmouth contributed through its Centre for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing  bringing expertise in natural fibre composites.

The project also explored replacing synthetic plastics with bio based polymers , combined with renewable fibres such as flax, hemp, jute, and date palm. These materials performed well across diverse applications from packaging to smart textiles.

While natural fibres present challenges, including variability and moisture sensitivity, the FLOWER project developed advanced processes to improve performance and consistency. The outcome is a significant step toward more sustainable, high performance composites.

Source: https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/protecting-our-environment/sustainable-materials-innovation-at-the-university-of-portsmouth-lessons-from-the-interreg-flower-project