Maddalen's PhD is about Life Cycle Assessment of emerging technologies for the Blue Bioeconomy, focusing on brown-seaweed-based plastic production. She assesses this emerging technology from an ex-ante consequential life cycle assessment perspective. In her PhD, she studies the global suppliers of brown seaweed that are expected to increase in the future, the entire life cycle assessment of the seaweed-based plastic and the upscaling of this technology.

If this emerging technology is implemented in the future and the demand for this seaweed-based plastic increases, it is necessary knowing the brown seaweed suppliers that are increasing and will be able to respond to a future increase in demand. In consequential LCA these suppliers are called “marginal suppliers”. The Life cycle assessment will show the environmental impacts of this seaweed-based plastic including different scenarios about its end of life. Finally, the scaling-up will help to obtain a more accurate estimation of the environmental impact of the seaweed-based plastic on an industrial scale and upgrades the comparability of the new product with commercially available products.