A UK-based materials innovation company has secured a £100,000 ($135,000) grant from Innovate UK to accelerate the development of scalable bioplastics.
Natural Negative, located in Brighton, East Sussex, will use the funding to advance its work in making its bioplastics viable within existing production environments.
While bio-based materials have advanced significantly in recent years, the manufacturing systems required to process them have not kept pace, the company claimed.
Plastics production has been optimised for fossil-based materials over decades, meaning many alternatives fail when moving from lab development to factory scale, Natural Negative added.
Natural Negative said it is focused on addressing this gap by enabling manufacturers to process bio-based materials on existing production lines, reducing the need for costly changes and minimising disruption to operations.
The company said it also challenges the common approach of beginning with a single material and then attempting to apply it across multiple use cases.
Instead, it starts with the product and manufacturing requirements, working backwards to develop the right formulation, prioritising compatibility with existing manufacturing processes.
Biggest barrier to bioplastics growth
Dr Phoebe Heseltine, co-founder of Natural Negative, said: “The biggest barrier to replacing fossil plastics is no longer the materials themselves, but the manufacturing systems behind them. Much of the industry has focused on creating ideal alternatives, but the reality is that manufacturers need materials that work in real production environments, without introducing risk or downtime.
“What we’re building is designed around those practical constraints and rather than starting with a material and hoping it fits, we start with what the manufacturer actually needs and work backwards to the right formulation.”
The funding from Innovate UK, a government science and technology agency, will support the company in refining its materials and processes, with the aim of making material innovation faster, more repeatable, and commercially viable across a range of industries.
The grant marks an important milestone as Natural Negative continues to develop solutions that could help shift sustainable materials from niche applications into mainstream manufacturing, Heseltine added.
