A&B Smart Materials: Replacing Microplastic with Biodegradable Alternatives

Founded in 2023 by Amaury van Trappen (CEO) and Dr. Benjamin White (CTO), A&B Smart Materials is an Oxford-based deeptech startup developing bio-based and fully biodegradable superabsorbent polymers (SAPs). Their materials are designed to match the performance and pricing of synthetic SAPs while eliminating persistent microplastics.

The company closed an oversubscribed £1.5M Pre-Seed round in December 2025 to accelerate R&D and industrial validation. Its ambition: replace fossil-based, non-degradable SAPs in hygiene and agriculture, a market projected to reach $17 billion by 2035.

The Problem

Superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) are the key ingredient in disposable diapers, sanitary products, and certain agricultural water-retention products.

Today, around 4.1 million tons of SAPs are produced annually, and the vast majority are fossil-based and non-biodegradable. 250 million nappies are disposed of globally every day and 300,000 disposable nappies are sent to landfill or incinerated every minute. These materials accumulate in soil and waterways as persistent microplastics. In agriculture, the EU has already issued a ban on non-biodegradable SAPs starting in 2028.

As Amaury explains, the realisation came when regulatory signals and market feedback aligned: commercial players were actively looking for a scalable biodegradable alternative.

A&B Smart Materials develops sustainable SAPs built from widely available and naturally derived biopolymers such as cellulose and starch, two of the most abundant organic polymers on the planet.

The innovation lies in chemically modifying and structuring these materials to deliver:

• High absorbency comparable to synthetic SAPs
• Full biodegradability
• Compatibility with existing production lines
• Competitive cost projections at industrial scale

Unlike many alternative approaches that rely on fermentation-based or enzyme-driven systems — often too expensive for mass-market hygiene applications — the startup focuses on abundant, price-stable inputs and scalable chemistry. 

Their ambition is not to create a niche “green premium” product, but to match the performance and production costs of current fossil-based SAPs. A major global chemical company independently validated that A&B’s hygiene-grade formulation achieves over 80% biodegradation within three months in sludge.

Key Figures

• Over 80% biodegradation within three months in sludge (third-party validation)
• Global SAP market: $9.1B today and $17.6B by 2035
• £1.5M Pre-Seed round (oversubscribed)
• Winner TBAT Innovation Challenge 2025 and 2nd runner-up BBIA Demeter Award 2025

The company was born from the meeting of two complementary profiles: Amaury van Trappen, with an engineering and management background (University of Bath, University of Cambridge), and Dr. Benjamin White, PhD in Nanotechnology and Smart Materials from the University of Oxford.

They met through Entrepreneur First and spent months exploring multiple deep-tech problems before identifying biodegradable SAPs as the highest-impact opportunity. The oversubscribed round was driven by what Amaury describes as a “rare combination”: massive market size, regulatory tailwinds, complementary founders, and early technical and commercial validation.

A&B Smart Materials were selected for the Creative Destruction Lab in Paris (Climate Stream) to bridge the gap between their cutting-edge polymer science and commercial scale through objective-based mentorship and strategic guidance from industry experts.

The team operates from University of Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park, enabling it to accelerate experimentation, testing and material optimisation.

What’s Next?

The £1.5M (equivalent to $2M/ €1.7M) Pre-Seed round provides approximately two years of runway under the company’s current operating plan.

A&B Smart Materials will focus on achieving a step-change improvement in the performance-to-cost ratio of its lab-scale formulation. Another key milestone will be converting structured Letters of Intent (LOIs) into formal development and commercial agreements. The team also aims to move into pilot-scale production to validate industrial assumptions in real-world conditions.

The objective: move from lab validation to industrial deployment and position A&B Smart Materials as a scalable and biodegradable replacement, disrupting the core of a multi-billion-dollar market.