EcoPlastiC at the TUS Research Week 2025

The TUS Research Week 2025 took place during the week from 17-21 February, across the Midwest Campuses of Moylish, Coonagh and the Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), TUS Clare St. Campus. The conference was conducted in a hybrid format, combining both in-person and virtual attendance modes. The whole event had over 3388 attendees across 69 sessions, including academic staff, research staff, postgraduate students and industry partners. The event this year grew over 35% compared to last year.

Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) has kicked off its third annual Research Week, themed “Sustainable Research in a Sustainable World”. This year’s event marks the university’s most extensive Research Week to date, highlighting the vibrant and dynamic research happening at TUS. Held across the Limerick campuses, a key focus of this year’s conference is the emphasis on industry collaboration within the region.

From research that focuses on understanding the impact of menopausal symptoms on women’s health and designing lifestyle interventions to support them, to a project identifying new compounds for treating Hodgkin lymphoma, as well as research that explores the ways to make use of e-scooters and e-bikes safer – the week showcases a variety of innovative projects.

One of the flagship initiatives, the TU RISE Programme, exemplified the TUS commitment by bridging the gap between academia and industry. The programme was designed to support enterprise-driven research projects that address real-world challenges, deliver practical solutions and deepen societal engagement.

PhD students Necdet Ozcelik and Zeliha Ozcelik, and a post-doctoral researcher Dr Eduardo Lanzagorta actively participated at this event. The full Agenda is available here. In addition to their presentation, TUS teamengaged in insightful panel discussions with fellow researchers, exchanging ideas on sustainability and material science. The event provided a valuable platform to highlight cutting-edge research and foster future collaborations.

Necdet Ozcelik had a poster presentation “Sustainable alternatives to PP: Advancing Circular Economy with PET and PBT in contact lens molding” on 18 February 2025 and he was a speaker at the Circular Systems and Nature panel. He engaged in in-depth discussions on sustainable design, resource efficiency and nature-based solutions. Drawing from the EcoPlastiC experiences, he exchanged insights on circular systems and explored various impact scenarios, contributing to a deeper understanding of sustainable innovation and its real-world applications.

Dr Eduardo Lanzagorta Garcia had an oral presentation “Leveraging life cycle assessment for sustainable plastic solutions: A case study of the EcoPlastiC project” on 19 February 2025. This oral presentation aimed to provide a general overview of the process required to produce a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), using the LCA for the EcoPlastiC project as an example to showcase the advantages of applying this methodology to identify areas of improvement regarding sustainability. He was also a speaker at the Sustainability and Creativity panel, answering questions related to the overlap and differences between engineering and design, in the context of sustainable products.

Zeliha Ozcelik had a poster presentation “Near-infrared-induced high-performance antimicrobial active coating for medical textiles based on easy-to-synthesize natural catechin with full end of life crcularity” on 20 February 2025. The poster showcased sustainable, natural-based solutions with full end-of-life circularity, emphasizing innovative approaches to medical textile coatings.