15 April 2021
Distretto Biomedicale is one of the six italian partner composing the imPURE Consortium together with Sidam, Iungo, Warrant Hub, Stil Gomma and Producta. They decided to talk about the 5 made in Italy realities with an interview, starting with Producta. Here is the translation of the interview:
As already announced in recent months, Distrettobiomedicale.it, the portal dedicated to the Mirandolese Biomedical District, is one of the six Italian companies participating in the European research project imPURE which received a contribution of approximately 5.8 million Euros from the European Commission. It is one of the 23 projects selected and funded under the EU Horizon 2020 program to address the problems that emerged with the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to the difficulty in procuring medical devices. The project aims to develop a new extremely flexible production concept by exploiting Additive Manufacturing technology and the most innovative digital solutions including new generation sensors and artificial intelligence. imPURE will involve a total of 19 partners from 8 different European countries, coordinated by the Technical University of Athens.
There are 6 Italian companies participating in the project, in addition to Distrettobiomedicale.it there are Sidam from Mirandola, Iungo from Modena, Warrant Hub from Correggio (RE), Stil Gomma from Bergamo and Producta from Macerata.
We decided to talk about the 5 made in Italy realities with an interview, starting with Producta.
“Producta – explains Dimitri LADIKOS, commercial director -, was founded in 1976 with the declared aim of creating custom solutions and ad hoc products according to precise specifications in compliance with the requirements of the market and international regulations. An entrepreneurial reality of over 40 years that has made digital technologies and cutting-edge design methodologies its strong point, creating and building internally matrices and dies for the production of extruded technical profiles and molded components for the most varied fields of application from architectural to medical. This was also possible thanks to the use of different technologies and manufacturing processes applied to a wide spectrum of polymers including vulcanized rubbers in compact and expanded EPDM and silicone rubbers, as well as rigid and plasticized PVC and thermoplastic rubbers in TPE-S and TPE-V. The latest generation is the implementation of an internal division dedicated to the extrusion of specific families of technopolymers such as filled polyamides for the production of high-performance thermal insulating profiles in order to support the reference market and its customers in the ecological transition, more and more sensitive to the rationalization of energy consumption and the reduction of CO2 emissions. To date, the company has become a point of reference in the construction, automotive and household appliance sectors by exporting about 80% of its production and boasting excellent collaborations with both national and European multinationals “.
What role do you have in the imPURE project and what will your activity be?
“Producta has a strategic role in the definition and implementation of high-performance materials compliant with the production of the COVID-19 protection mask as well as in the implementation and conversion of its existing production lines for the realization of the same. In addition, the company will have a primary and strategic role in the application studies of recyclability of the chosen materials oriented towards the possibility of reusing end-of-life masks in other industrial sectors no longer as waste materials but as added value in the form of reusable post-production polymer. as raw material when producing other products. Our mission has always had a keen eye on environmental protection which over time has allowed us to develop research and development collaborations that have merged into innovative patents recognized and awarded by the European Community as part of the Horizon 2020 program for sustainable growth and recyclability of materials “.
What kind of skills are you putting at the service of the project?
“As anticipated, Producta is making its advanced technological studies and researches available to the imPURE project in the field of industrial-scale recyclability of products that have completed their economic-technical life cycle. Specifically, our technicians will provide the process know-how on de-vulcanization and reuse of waste destined for landfill as polymers with high added value in the form of post-production raw material with performance characteristics completely comparable to those of materials obtained with polymers. virgins. The collaboration with national and international universities as well as the cooperation with qualified research centers has made it possible to implement the development in the field of de-vulcanization and recycling process / product innovation by applying it to different polymeric macro-groups such as EPDM and Silicone rubbers as well as different types of thermoplastics and thermosets thus allowing Producta to be fully considered a pioneering company in the field of sustainable economy capable of facilitating pollution control and environmental protection as demonstrated by the growing sensitivity and huge investment at European level with the multiannual Horizon 2020 program “.
What is the most demanding challenge you are facing within the project?
“The most demanding challenge that we are facing together with our partners of the imPURE project is precisely in the development of an anti COVID-19 mask made with technologies related to materials oriented to a sustainable industry, able to facilitate low-carbon production. , and with high energy savings, thus avoiding the landfill of millions of masks, a problem that will show all its impact once the urgency phase of the pandemic has returned to more easily manageable channels at a global level “.
Beyond impURE, are you pursuing other innovations or have you recently presented any on the market? On what fronts and with what investments?
“Still in the broad sector represented by the sustainable economy, we are developing innovative extruded products with high insulating performance. Specifically, we are already at an advanced stage of experimenting with innovative composite materials to obtain new lines of extruded profiles” LOW LAMBDA – Low emissivity “; Consider that the environmental problem linked to the production of emissions in the construction sector is a priority and the data that emerge are alarming given that the construction sector would be responsible for 36% of final energy consumption and 39% of total carbon dioxide emissions. worldwide. The activities carried out and the huge investments made by PRODUCTA have made it possible to acquire new knowledge on nanotechnologies and expanded materials which, structured and combined, have allowed us to obtain very promising results in terms of reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions “.
What are the professional profiles you look at with the most attention?
“Graduates and industrial technical experts oriented above all to a knowledge in the field of chemistry and chemistry applied to industrial materials, as well as mechanical engineers for the development and implementation of production processes”.
