Eggs are a symbol of springtime renewal. But did you know they can also support renewability?
Companies have been developing new materials using eggshell – a renewable, circular feedstock with applications as diverse as car tyres and skincare.
As a sustainable material, eggshell ticks all the right boxes. Annually, the world produces around 7.2 million tonnes of this biodegradable debris, making it an abundant and cheap feedstock.
Biomaterials made from waste eggshell are also circular, meaning they come from waste that has been cycled back into the economy as higher value goods.
Here are some of the most innovative eggshell-based materials on the market or in development today.
Stellantis – egg filler for sustainable tyres
With its reputation for fragility, perhaps carmaker Stellantis has developed one of the most surprising eggshell bio-innovations.
Stellantis is one of the biggest carmakers in the world and has recently developed a way of turning eggs into a calcium carbonate tyre ingredient.
It filed a patent for the innovation in February 2025 and claims it could make tyres more sustainable.
The eggshell-derived calcium carbonate would replace traditional, dirtier tyre material fillers like carbon black – a fine black powder made from burning hydrocarbons that makes tyres more durable.
The innovation showcases the impressive range of physical properties and applications that eggshells can offer once processed.
The company claims the technology could lower rolling resistance by 20 percent as well as improve fuel efficiency.
Rania Elakalla – egg ‘marble’ for homeware and design
Rania Elakalla is a Berlin-based designer who has pushed the limits of eggshell as a material for interior design elements.
By combining waste eggshell with nutshell, she has achieved a translucent, mineral-like material that resembles marble. Its name is Shell Homage.
Eggshell makes for a perfect circular input in construction because despite its biological origins, it counts as a mineral.
Eggshells are composed mostly of calcium carbonate, a substance which they share in common with almost every building you enter since it is an ingredient in cement.
One of the most stunning natural forms that calcium carbonate comes in is marble. Unlike real marble, however, Elakalla’s material is made from two common waste byproducts of the food industry, avoiding the ecological impacts that come with mined rock.
The eggshell material takes on an astonishing rainbow of coloured dyes and can be machined, sanded, or laser cut, forming anything from elastic sheets to hard surfaces depending on the production method.
The material is also 100% biobased as the bonding materials Ellakalla uses in them is made from renewable materials.
Its beauty and versatility mean that Shell Homage has the potential to replace more resource-intensive materials in homeware and design like plastics.
Spark Sourcing – biobased additive for plastics
US company Spark Sourcing has patented an eggshell filler for plastics.
Once eggshells are powdered and made into pellets, they can be dropped into virgin plastics and served up to the consumer without any loss in performance.
The end result is a material that is between 30 percent and 50 percent egg-based, cutting back on the need for virgin plastics and reducing the carbon dioxide impact of the material.
Composite materials like this which mix biobased and petrochemical substances can be a useful compromise for consumers and industry that want to lower their carbon footprints.
Composites that contain some low carbon circular and renewable materials lower the environmental impacts of a production line without having to re-fit equipment and supply chains for a switch to 100% biobased manufacturing.
In this case, Spark Sourcing reported that mixing in their eggshell-based pellets into plastic cuts 70 percent of the carbon emissions associated with the end product.
EGGXPERT – eggshell in skincare and 3D printing
EGGXPERT is a Dutch company working with waste eggshell to create many different materials across industries. Their work highlights the real versatility of the chemicals contained inside the humble waste food.
90 percent of eggshell waste consists of the mineral shell. However, EGGXPERT specialises in using up the thin membrane tucked inside of it.
Using the membrane the company has developed a circular peptide that can be used in the skincare and beauty industry as an ingredient.
Peptides are the building blocks of skin. It is a popular ingredient for the skincare and beauty industry because it is responsible for building all the components of skin that make it look young and healthy, like collagen and elastin.
The peptides in our skin are produced naturally by our bodies. However, when manufactured artificially for skincare products, these compounds can cause a lot of environmental harm.
The skincare industry generally uses peptides from petroleum feedstock and synthetic chemicals. Compared to these, egg membranes offer a gentler, circular input.
EGGXPERT’s renewable peptides tap a growing market for sustainable cosmetics. The renewable ingredient fits the bill for an industry that often brands itself as using natural ingredients that support environmental health while being gentle on the skin.
Skincare is only one of the areas that EGGXPERT are working in. The company has also devised a very different material from eggshell, one it hopes will make the the 3D printing industry more sustainable.
EGGXPERT offers refined eggshell powders that can combine with biodegradable bioplastics to form more sustainable materials that can be used in 3D printers.
The product opens a pathway to reduce the use of oil-based, non-biodegradable plastics by the 3D printing industry.
University of Saskatchewan – eggshell bioplastic to combat pollution
A new eggshell-based plastic could clean up environmental pollution while securing strategic commodities in the process.
In 2024, Dr. Lee Wilson from the University of Saskatchewan in Western Canada, published a paper on a new eggshell-based bioplastic that could tackle fertiliser pollution in rivers.
The bioplastic material he developed contains chitosan – another biobased mineral, which is found in the shells of marine life – as well as eggshells and wheat straw.
The material is designed to tackle phosphate pollution, a huge environmental problem worldwide.
Phosphate is used to fertilise agricultural soils. However, excess amounts applied to fields are highly environmentally damaging.
When farmers overapply the mineral, the surplus washes off from the soil into rivers and lakes. When the material builds up in waterways, it can kill wildlife.
The second ecologically damaging aspect of phosphates is that it has to be mined from rock. This can be a carbon-intensive process that can harm habitats and wildlife.
WIlson’s eggshell bioplastics try to address both of these problems. The material is designed to suck up excess phosphates from polluted water.
Once saturated with phosphates, farmers can apply the biodegradable eggshell bioplastics to the soil. Here, it will break down to release its mineral load and fertilise the soil.
The bioplastic therefore doubles as an environmental clean-up tech and a tool for reducing agricultural demand for mined phosphates.
This biobased innovation might have come at an opportune time. Global trade links are fraying, leading some regions to strengthen domestic supply chains in key goods like phosphate.
Circular solutions like Dr. Wilson’s eggshell bioplastic could attract growing interest in the EU – a big agricultural producer heavily dependent on fertiliser from abroad.
UCL – healing egg membranes
Then there are the biomedical uses of eggshell membrane.
In terms of volume, the membrane forms a tiny portion of the eggshell. However, this natural wonder material punches above its weight when it comes to repairing damaged tissue.
Studies have shown that modified eggshell membrane can help in wound healing because it is so rich in molecules that aid tissue repair, including collagen and cysteine.
Following on from this, a research team at UCL have developed and validated a method for extracting the eggshell membrane intact and without changing its chemical properties.
The team have also developed a protocol for modifying the eggshell to improve on its natural properties for wound healing.
The team notes that its manual for extracting and treating eggshell membrane could be useful beyond biomedical applications.
The team points out that once extracted and treated in this way, the material could act as a biodegradable packaging that can replace oil-based plastics in certain applications.
Some examples of packaging applications where modified eggshell could work are wrapping, cling film, doggy poo bags, disposable wet wipes, and teabags.
Egg membrane is well-suited to biomedical and food packaging applications because it is highly biocompatible. This means that our immune systems are unlikely to reject it.
These emerging applications show that eggshells and their membranes have all the hallmarks of a super circular material.
While they may be a niche feedstock today, ecological and geopolitical pressures could soon favour faster adoption.
With climate change and new global trade patterns forcing more countries to reevaluate where their raw materials are coming from, widely available byproducts like eggshell could become far more common industrial input.
