Published in Nature Sustainability (impact factor 27.1), the multidisciplinary study outlines a workflow that combines computational screening, sustainable synthesis, toxicological evaluation and materials testing to find bisphenol candidates with negligible estrogenic effects.
One of the identified chemicals, bisguaiacol F (BGF), was successfully incorporated into a polyester material that exhibited thermal stability and mechanical properties comparable to conventional BPA-based plastics. This signals potential for future environmentally safer and non-toxic polymer products.
By aligning the research with the European Commission’s Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) framework, the team’s approach supports both regulatory acceptance and industrial uptake of next-generation materials.
The study emphasises the power of cross-disciplinary collaboration to minimise health and environmental risks while advancing materials innovation, marking a significant step toward safer, more sustainable materials.
“The workflow we delivered is a key point of this research. The way we collaborate between different disciplines to align with the SSbD framework can be generalized for various types of toxicity and for various kinds of chemical compounds meant for consumer products.” says lead author Helena Lundberg to kth.se.
Read more in an article published at kth.se
Cristiana Margarita, Paula Pierozan, Sathiyaraj Subramaniyan, Andrey Shatskiy, Darius Pakarinen, Annabelle Fritz, Emma Lundqvist, Victoria Chu, Hampus Hagelin, Ulf Norinder, Minna Hakkarainen, Oskar Karlsson & Helena Lundberg
Safe-and-sustainable-by-design approach to polyesters from non-oestrogenic bisphenols.
Nat Sustain (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01672-z