09/10/2026
🌱 From France to Leoben 🇫🇷 - 🇦🇹:meet Roland Schlüter
Can bio-based plastics really become a viable alternative to fossil-based materials?
That is one of the questions Roland Schlüter is exploring during his his Erasmus+ stay at Montanuniversität Leoben.
Roland is an engineering student at at EEIGM – École Européenne d’Ingénieurs en Génie des Matériaux, Université de Lorraine, France, an international materials engineering school whose consortium also includes Montanuniversität Leoben.
Here in Leoben, he is working within the the CircularBioMat project, which explores bio-based materials as alternatives to conventional fossil-based polymers in building applications.
His material system combines a a bio-based polyethylene matrix with renewable natural fibres, including:
🌾 wheat straw
🌿 miscanthus
🌲 fir wood
🌳 beech wood
The challenge goes beyond developing a sustainable material.
Roland is currently investigating one of the very practical problems that can arise during processing: moisture in natural fibres.
How can the fibres be dried without damaging them?
And how does moisture affect compounding and injection moulding?
These questions matter because a sustainable material needs to be not only environmentally promising — it also needs to be be processable, reproducible and suitable for real manufacturing. ⚙️♻️
We are happy to welcome Roland to Leoben and to see international students contributing to research at the intersection of materials science, polymer processing and sustainability.
Which natural fibre would you expect to perform best in a polymer composite? 🌾🌲🌳
ErasmusPlus CircularBioMat BiobasedMaterials NaturalFibres CircularEconomy SustainableMaterials PolymerProcessing MaterialsScience Research Innovation InternationalStudents Leoben
[9.10., 09:03] Natalie: Instagram
🌱 From France to Leoben: meet Roland Schlüter
Can bio-based plastics really become a viable alternative to fossil-based materials?
That is one of the questions Roland Schlüter is exploring during his E
