Chitin & Lignin: Turning Food Waste into Cosmeceuticals

The ~3 billion tons/year of worldwide food waste represents a great environmental problem to be positively solved. Thus, it may be used as an interesting raw material to be transformed in useful biodegradable goods. In the same way an agricultural correct waste management can prevent further environmental damage. For both these waste it is possible to obtain chitin and lignin respectively to be used for producing biodegradable tissues to make, for example, baby diapers, beauty masks and advanced medications, according to the EU research project PolyBioSkin. This paper reports some results obtained by the use of both nano-chitin and nano-lignin.