Bath engineering graduates, Amaury van Trappen de Buggenoms and Thomas Santini, are named in this year’s Forbes 30 under 30 Europe list for their work developing biodegradable alternatives to fossil-based plastics and next-generation autonomous bodyguard satellites, respectively.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list highlights young innovators across sectors, including engineering, robotics and automation, with honourees selected from thousands of candidates.
Amaury van Trappen de Buggenoms, who completed a master's in Mechanical Engineering in 2021, was recognised for his role in co-founding and leading A&B Smart Materials, an Oxford-based materials science startup developing bio-based, fully biodegradable super-absorbent polymers.
Thomas Santini, who completed a master’s in Integrated Design Engineering with a placement in industry in 2022, made the list as the Co-founder and CTO of a space defence start-up, Lodestar, building autonomous ‘fighter’ spacecraft. He is named alongside co-founder, Neil Buchanan.
A natural alternative to fossil-based plastics
Super-absorbent polymers are used in everyday products such as disposable nappies and sanitary products, as well as in agriculture as mini reservoirs to retain water in soil. They absorb hundreds of times their weight in liquid and are typically made from fossil fuels that fragment into microplastics and build up in the environment. Producing more than 4.1 million tonnes of plastic each year, their impact is felt on a global scale.
The team at A&B Smart Materials has developed a natural alternative made from plant-based materials. At the end of their life, the materials can be broken down by bacteria into simple sugars that can be digested by microorganisms in the soil, avoiding long-term pollution.
Amaury said: “Bath was genuinely formative in the path that led here. The MEng gave me the engineering rigour and systems thinking I rely on daily, from interpreting our technical team's material data, to structuring investor conversations around performance and manufacturability, to navigating scale-up decisions.”
Amaury’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr Benjamin White, also graduated from the University of Bath, completing an MChem in Chemistry before going on to a PhD in Nanotechnology at the University of Oxford.
A&B Smart Materials successfully closed a heavily oversubscribed £1.5 million pre-seed funding round in December 2025.
Defending the ultimate high ground
Recent official statements suggest that the Earth’s orbital environment is becoming more complex, with a greater need to ensure that critical satellites, such as those involved in communications or navigation, can operate safely and remain resilient against attack.
Lodestar is a space technology start-up developing software-driven, autonomous spacecraft that can detect and characterise threats, make decisions, and respond instantly without needing constant ground control.
The team have so far tested their technology with partners such as MIT, NASA and leading US space companies. They recently launched their first orbital mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and are on track to launch more into orbit later this year.
Thomas said: “Bath shaped me into an engineer-entrepreneur; the competition teams, the coursework, shipping something real under real constraints, that's where I learned that the rate of learning is the most important engineering muscle you can build. Not what you know, but how fast you can figure it out.
“My course at Bath gave me hard, hands-on problems and the safety to fail fast and fail forward. If you have high agency and aren't afraid to ruffle feathers, it's an environment where you can do great work and build skills to solve the world's hardest problems.”
Alongside raising around $3 million (£2.2 million) from leading venture capital investors, Lodestar has secured over $3.6 million (£2.7 million) in grants and contracts from government bodies, including the U.K. Space Agency, European Space Agency and U.K. Ministry of Defence.