As part of our project dissemination, our partners from Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (UniNa) / University of Naples Federico II participated in the SUSCHEM25 – Workshop on Sustainable Recovery and Valorization of Polyphenols held in Napoli, 8–10 October 2025.

They presented the poster:

“DESigned to Pretreat Olive Pomace: Laccase Joins the Cascading Biorefinery Route”, showcasing a dual chemo-enzymatic approach to sustainably fractionate olive pomace. By combining Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) with laccase biocatalysis, the strategy supports both sugar and lignin valorization, enabling the production of PHBV biopolymer and bacterioruberin pigment from Haloferax mediterranei.

This innovative work contributes directly to advancing integrated, waste-based biorefineries.

Special congratulations to PhD student Ivelina Dzhambazova, supervised by Prof. Cinzia Pezzella (UNINA), who received the Best Poster Award for this outstanding work!

Our project was also represented at the SUSCHEM ’25 by PhD student Emanuela Rizzo who presented her work under MATE4MEAT.

Presentation title: Laccase-mediated grafting of phenols from food wastes on cellulose
Authors: Emanuela Rizzo, Rossana Pitocchi, Paola Cicatiello, Paola Giardina, Özge Şakıyan Demirkol, Claudia Corazzi, Alessandra Piscitelli

Her research explores how enzymatic strategies can valorise food waste by grafting phenolic compounds onto cellulose — an innovative approach with strong potential for developing sustainable packaging materials.