Turning shell waste into cosmetic ingredients

Happy to announce that Plinius Labs has secured grant support for valorising shellfish-residue in cooperation with Neo-Eco (FR), a French engineering firm specialised in circular materials. This project is enabled by Crossroads France-Wallonie-Vlaanderen, with support from POM Oost-Vlaanderen, POM West-Vlaanderen, Wallonie Entreprendre, Grand Est Développement, l'Agence régionale des transformations and VLAIO - Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Calcium carbonate

The aim of this biennial project is to valorise shell waste into bio-minerals — more specifically, calcium carbonate, for use in cosmetics and personal care products.

Calcium carbonate is a natural mineral currently extracted from white rock deposits (quarries), most of which is destined for the construction sector. However, high‑purity calcium carbonate with a fine particle size distribution is very well suited for use in cosmetics (oral care products, makeup, and skincare products). It serves as a texture enhancer, whitening agent, filler, thickener, and abrasive agent.

In the next two years, Plinius Labs will scale extraction and processing on existing assets, tune to cosmetic specifications and validate in a variety of cosmetic applications to sustain the circularity process and sustainable ingredients policy at our customers. The program advances TRL-8 with industrial QA, enabling EU-ready adoption without reformulation.

This project is part of Plinius Lab’s mission, improving consumer products by natural product chemistry.