Bioeconomy

With insects to the circular economy - 30/11/2022

InBiRa: Insect biorefinery turns food leftovers into new products

Insect larvae can convert food leftovers and waste into secondary raw materials for technical products and cosmetics. Researchers are looking to establish an insect biorefinery for this purpose at the Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart. The InBiRa project is financed with a total of 3.8 million euros in EU and Baden-Württemberg state funding.

Article - 11/02/2016

Next-generation biofuels – economical and climate friendly

Alternatives for fossil fuels are urgently being sought. Prof. Dr. Ralf Kölling, a biotechnologist from the University of Hohenheim, and his team of scientists are working on a new, continuous method to produce bioethanol efficiently that could potentially overcome current drawbacks in biofuel production.

Article - 13/02/2018

Pleasant aromas from biogas

Butyric acid is an important source of fruity aromas. It accumulates as an intermediary product during biogas production, from where it can be siphoned off and used for producing flavours. A new collaborative project aims to explore the technological and bioeconomic potential of extracting butyric acid from biogas plants.

Paludiculture as a beacon of hope for the climate - 28/06/2022

Peatlands as CO2 reservoirs: simultaneous renaturation and use

Peatlands store more carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem in the world. However, when drained, they become a climate-damaging source of CO2. The management of wet peatlands reveals exciting solutions, with market potential in the areas of local heating, insulation, packaging and even peat substitution.

Festo’s high-tech bioreactor - 10/11/2022

Valuable materials of all kinds - produced automatically in living cells

In future, algae could be used to produce practically everything that still requires petroleum, including plastics, fuels, medicines and food. Algae are also climate savers par excellence, because they bind ten times more CO2 than terrestrial plants. Festo, a company based in Esslingen, Germany, has developed a high-tech bioreactor that can be used to automatically cultivate the small green biofactories - and that do so a hundred times more…

The pulp of coffee beans is considered a waste product on coffee plantations, which is usually thrown away or dumped into rivers - with significant negative consequences for climate change and the environment. Macarena San Martín-Ruiz from the University of Stuttgart is working with Coopetarrazú, the largest coffee cooperative in Costa Rica, to find out how the mixture of pulp and husks can be turned into organic compost and thus protect the…

Article - 07/12/2016

Insect chitin makes textile production more sustainable

Insects have an external skeleton composed mainly of chitin. Chitin is a long-chain polysaccharide with functional groups that make it a valuable biopolymer for a broad range of applications. Chitin is an almost inexhaustible resource, as it is constantly produced in huge quantities throughout nature. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB) and six cooperation partners are working on…

Perspectives of methane as energy source - 18/06/2020

New technologies for using biogas as a balancing energy

The microorganisms in biogas plants do a great job biologically converting CO₂ and hydrogen, which are primary fermentation products, into methane. Biomethane has a great future as an energy source. Scientists at the University of Hohenheim are investigating new ways to produce and use biomethane.

Article - 10/07/2010

Algae light up industry

The potential of Microalgae cannot yet be optimally used on the large scale. The bioprocess engineer Dr. Rosa Rosello and her team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT are investigating the conditions under which different microalgae species can optimally grow in photobioreactors and lead to high product yields. It is all a question of light and shade.

Start-up PROSERVATION - sustainable packaging - 21/09/2021

Husk as a substitute for polystyrene: packaging materials with a good conscience

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging is very practical, but it is made from petroleum and is not very environmentally friendly in other ways either. Single-use plastic containers made of EPS have therefore been banned in the EU, but alternatives are also urgently needed. The Stuttgart-based start-up PROSERVATION has developed an ecological packaging material made from grain husks that could replace EPS and be just as effective.

Dossier - 15/04/2019

The alternative: “bioplastics”

Plastic waste takes years to decompose and pollutes the environment. Nevertheless, plastics are an indispensable part of everyday life. It is therefore all the more important to find a meaningful alternative that is sustainable, environmentally friendly and has better properties and more functionality than conventional plastics. In addition, such an alternative should not be dependent in any way on fossil resources.

From field to socket - 03/02/2021

Energy park & Donau-Silphie: a symbiosis that benefits nature

Biogas plants that produce non-fossil fuels are very much in vogue at the moment. In the Swabian hamlet of Hahnennest, four family farms have joined forces to form an energy park and operate a local biogas plant, covering everything from substrate production to the sale of energy.

Press release - 26/07/2018

Power-to-X technologies and renewables

Storage solutions will be very much in demand as renewables account for a growing share of electricity in the grid. One option – converting fluctuating green electricity into chemical energy carriers or raw materials – looks particularly promising. Scientists at the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) want to put power-to-X processes into action with a two-pronged strategy.

rezemo GmbH - 26/06/2020

Coffee capsules: wood instead of aluminium

In Germany alone, around three billion disposable coffee capsules made of aluminium and plastic are sold every year. This creates a gigantic waste problem, as only a small proportion of the capsules can be recycled. Fully compostable wooden coffee capsules might be a solution to this problem. The capsules have been developed by a start-up company called rezemo, which also has other biobased packaging solutions in the pipeline.

In reforestation projects, the seedlings must be protected. So-called growth covers prevent game from feeding on the young plants and help to ensure that they are not prevented from growing by other plants. Previously used sheaths made of plastic and metal are often not removed in time and pollute the environment. The DITF have developed a biodegradable yarn for growth covers from renewable raw materials.

Dossier - 17/11/2021

Biorefinery: new paths to build our tomorrow

Sustainability is in vogue. And it’s not a question of wanting to be sustainable, but having to be: as the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows, protecting the climate and the environment calls for swift action. Biorefineries that use renewable raw materials and recycle industrial raw materials are playing an important role in the bioeconomy concepts of many countries - including the state of Baden-Württemberg.