Clara Bilbao

GAIKER, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), will take part at IFAT, the leading international trade fair for the environmental sector, which is being held in Munich this year between May 4 and 7.

The technology centre will share a stand with Aclima-Basque Environment Cluster, bringing together 20 partners with the aim of strengthening the environmental ecosystem of the Basque Country. This space will become a hub to showcase the solutions and capabilities of the companies involved, host events and presentations, and provide opportunities for professional meetings and networking with potential customers, partners and key actors in the sector.

At this edition, GAIKER will present its technological offer in the field of recycling and the circular economy, showing its commitment to innovative, sustainable solutions.

IFAT is the largest international platform dedicated to environmental technologies, particularly in the fields of water, recycling and the circular economy. As well as showcasing solutions, the event acts as a knowledge-sharing and networking hub for leading representatives from the sector from around the world.

Come and visit us at stand B4.332 and find out about the latest innovations in recycling and the circular economy!

The aim of the VALON project is to recover plastic waste that is rich in brominated flame retardants, which comes from processing and recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment, in order to obtain high-value secondary raw materials.

The GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), is taking part in the VALON project, the main aim of which is to add value to plastic waste that is rich in brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which comes from the industrial processing and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). This initiative focuses on concentrating and recovering the antimony (Sb) present in this waste and transforming it into a secondary raw material.

The European Union has included antimony on its list of critical raw materials, due to its strategic importance for various industrial sectors. European legislation aims to increase the annual supply of these materials by promoting the recycling of the waste that contains them, amongst other measures. To this end, VALON proposes investigating technological solutions aimed at recovering antimony from the plastics waste in WEEE that is rich in brominated flame retardants for use in industry.

The project, which will come to an end in December, will focus on studying and evaluating various recovery methods based on a combination of optical identification and automatic sorting technologies, together with separation methods based on physical properties, with the aim of obtaining plastic fractions with a high antimony content. Beneficiation, hydrometallurgical extraction and antimony recovery techniques will be applied to antimony-enriched fractions.

As part of the VALON project, GAIKER’s work focuses on conducting laboratory research:

1. The efficiency of LIBS spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis models to automatically classify the stream of brominated plastic waste from WEEE and obtain a new, antimony-enriched fraction.
2. The efficiency of separation processes (sink-float and froth flotation) based on the physical properties of plastics, with the aim of obtaining new fractions enriched in antimony and segregated by polymer type.
3. Thermal conditioning processes (pyrolysis) and hydrometallurgical extraction of antimony applied to antimony-concentrated plastic fractions.

The VALON project is coordinated by the Inatec Foundation and funded by the Basque Government (Record No.: KK-2025/00057) through the ELKARTEK 2025 aid programme for collaborative research in strategic areas.

Subsidised by the Basque Government

Paris will host a new edition of In-cosmetics Global between April 14 and 16, one of the most important meetings for the international cosmetics industry.

In this context, GAIKER, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), will once again take part and present its range of R&D&I services specialising in dermocosmetics. As in previous years, it will also share exhibition space with Dr. Goya Análisis and Anmar Clinical Services.

This event has become a leading showcase event for innovation in personal care, bringing together professionals from around the world who are keen on learning about new ingredients, identifying emerging trends and developing solutions that meet current market demands and can inspire the next generation of cosmetic products.

You can find us at stand A130. We look forward to seeing you!

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The RESITES project, coordinated by GAIKER, will enable new recyclable composites to be generated in order to efficiently make lightweight, resistant and sustainable products.

The GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), is coordinating the RESITES project (Recovery of recycled carbon and glass fibres in new recyclable composites), a strategic initiative aimed at researching the optimal reuse of recycled carbon and glass fibres from production waste and scrap. The aim is to improve their properties in order to generate new recyclable composites, modelling their performance and processability to efficiently make lightweight, resistant and sustainable products.

A large amount of composite waste accumulates each year from production scrap and end-of-life items. Although there have been significant advances in composite recycling technologies in recent years, the effective reuse of recovered fibres remains a challenge. In this context, RESITES proposes an innovative approach by investigating a new generation of high performance recyclable composites based on recovered recycled fibre and recyclable resins.

Funded by the Basque Government as part of its ELKARTEK 2025 aid programme for collaborative research in strategic areas, this project will provide solutions in technologies for the functionalising, sizing and hybridising of recycled reinforcements for their recovery, formulation of prepregs, recyclable composites and additive manufacturing materials, as well as the modelling of materials and processes.

As a result of this initiative, different experimental developments of recovered glass and carbon fibres, thermoplastic organosheets, recyclable thermoplastic and thermoset SMC and 3D printing pellets/filaments are expected to be obtained at a laboratory scale. Models will also be developed to predict the behaviour and processability of recyclable prepregs reinforced with recycled fibres.

The GAIKER Technology Centre, an expert in the development of sustainable polymeric materials with improved functional and structural performance, as well as coordinating the project, is participating in several of its lines of work:

1. Comprehensive recovery of recycled carbon and glass fibres through the development of sustainable composite materials and advanced processing techniques. Research is being carried out on the chemical treatment and dosage of short fibres in products such as SMC, GMT and non-woven fabrics, as well as the optimisation of these fabrics through oriented reinforcements and hybrid lamination.
2. Development of reactive (reprocessable) thermoplastic resin prepregs.
3. Study of mechanical and chemical recycling methods to ensure full circularity of the new materials developed.

Application of the advances of this project will have a particularly relevant impact on sectors such as mobility (automotive, railway, aeronautics and maritime), energy, sport and construction, all of which are significant in the Basque industry and economy. They are also areas in which industries linked to the processing of composites play a key role.

Subsidised by the Basque Government