Sustainable pigments and glitter from renewable cellulose

Inspired by nature, we developed effect pigments prepared from a single organic and renewable component extracted from plants: cellulose nanocrystals. Obtained via self-assembly, these pigments offer one of the most sustainable alternatives to all existing products, including microplastic, partially biodegradable glitter, and unsustainably sourced mica- and titania-based pigments. Securing this ERC-2022-PoC2 proposal will allow us to bring this much-needed technology from TRL6 to TRL7 by addressing 4 challenges: 1/ Finding a supplier of cellulose with ton-scale production capacity; 2/ Finding the best-suited manufacturing equipment with innovative options that we did not explore in our previous work; 3/ Delivering kilograms of our materials to end-users who are in need of this technology, for them to validate the technology; 4/ Quantifying the benefits of our products against existing alternatives, using Life Cycle Analysis, biodegradability and ecotoxicity studies.