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Dossier - 19/10/2022
Strawberries in winter and imported apples? You can find them in most supermarkets. This is not sustainable. Looking to the future, the way we eat needs to change in many mundane ways – and this needs to happen quickly so that future generations will also be able to enjoy a planet that is worth living on. In Baden-Württemberg, alternative nutrition concepts are being worked at pace. Many creative ideas and innovative products already exist.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/dossiers/more-food-sustainability-crucial-people-and-environment
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Press release - 06/10/2022
Basic chemicals, which are needed as raw materials for a wide range of products such as medicines and detergents, can currently only be produced with an enormously high input of energy and raw materials. In many cases, fossil fuels and raw materials are still used. The extraction of chemical substances alone requires high temperatures, expensive catalysts made of precious metals and, in some cases, environmentally harmful starting materials.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/neue-elektrolyseverfahren-fuer-eine-nachhaltige-chemische-produktion
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Press release - 29/09/2022
Fossil raw materials are limited and not available and extractable everywhere in the world – as we are becoming acutely aware of right now by the example of fossil fuels and rising energy prices. Renewable raw material sources will therefore play an increasingly important role in the future: as energy sources, but ideally also as suppliers of building blocks for more environmentally compatible chemicals and materials.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/algen-als-mikroskopische-bioraffinerien
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Sustainable nutrition - 05/09/2022
Insects on the dinner plate? Some people instantly dismiss the idea. Wrongly so, because in terms of animal welfare, ecological footprint and healthy nutrition, insect foods are much better than all other animal foods and are produced in a more controlled way. The fact that they can also taste really good is proven by the start-up Beneto Foods from Albstadt, which has developed protein-rich pasta in various flavours using cricket flour.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/insect-pasta-eating-healthily-and-improving-world-same-time
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Project BW2Pro - 29/08/2022
In 2020, Germany’s population collected over 5 million tonnes of biowaste. Most of this was composted, and some was fermented into biogas. Scientists in Baden-Württemberg think there's room for more. Within the project ‘Biowaste to Products’ (BW2Pro) they want to transform biowaste into new products in a biorefinery. The idea is to produce biodegradable plant pots, mulch material, fertilisers, enzymes and biobased plastics in addition to…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/biowaste-products-biorefinery-transforms-biowaste-new-products
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Press release - 20/05/2022
The construction industry consumes large amounts of energy resources and produces tons of waste. At the Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22 university competition, students and researchers from KIT are eager to demonstrate that the building sector is already compatible with a functioning circular economy. The task of the interdisciplinary “RoofKIT” team is to convert previously unused roofs of buildings into usable spaces.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/roofkit-how-build-recycling-oriented-and-sustainable-way
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pre-start-up company Wheyfinery - 13/04/2022
There is not much you can do with acid whey, which is why several million litres of it are disposed of every year. This is both costly and not sustainable. However, researchers at Tübingen University have shown: acid whey can be used to produce precursors for biofuels, fine chemicals and antimicrobial livestock feed additives. They have set up the pre-start-up company Wheyfinery in an endeavour to make their scalable biorefinery concept…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/acid-whey-valuable-raw-material-platform-chemicals-and-more
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Filament winding technology for sustainable construction - 06/04/2022
One of the greatest challenges in the construction industry is the transition to more environmentally friendly and resource-saving buildings. Researchers at the University of Stuttgart are combining state-of-the-art robotic filament winding technologies with ancient local crops to produce stable and sustainable lightweight structures from flax fibres.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/robotic-building-natural-fibres
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Alternative foodstuff ? - 09/03/2022
If there were a competition for the ‘crop of the future’, hemp would certainly be at the top. But not because of the intoxicating effect of some hemp varieties. Cannabis has the potential to help supply protein in the quantities required by a growing world population – in a sustainable way. The TASTINO project brings together researchers from academia and industry to work on ways to make the regional superfood available as a vegan alternative.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/hemp-regional-superfood-and-valuable-source-protein
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Press release - 02/03/2022
The Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector is funding the KoalAplan project, which extends the functional scope of a wastewater treatment plant. The project, based in the Stuttgart district of Büsnau, aims at recovering raw materials from wastewater and is therefore making a positive contribution to climate neutrality, as the products obtained replace fossil raw materials and energy-intensive processes.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/biorefinery-project-koalaplan-extracting-raw-materials-wastewater
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Press release - 02/03/2022
The Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector is funding the new research project RoKKa which is used to prove the viability of recovering raw materials from wastewater. This adds a crucial function to the scope of a conventional sewage treatment plant. Together with the operators of the sewage treatment plants in Erbach and Neu-Ulm, the project partners demonstrate the positive contribution towards climate protection…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/die-klaeranlage-der-zukunft-heisst-bioraffinerie
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Press release - 02/02/2022
fischertechnik has set a new milestone with the Animal Friends construction kit, as the building blocks and packaging are largely made of renewable resources and the models depict playful animals in new colours. The company is thereby taking another major step towards sustainability. The bio-based building set recently won the Toy Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/animal-friends-aus-nachwachsenden-rohstoffen
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Press release - 13/01/2022
Making important raw materials for fine chemicals out of carbon dioxide really works. As part of the Max Planck collaborative project eBioCO2n, a team of researchers from Fraunhofer IGB have successfully performed a first ever fixation of CO2 via a multi-enzyme enzyme reaction driven by electricity yielding a prospective intermediate for the chemical industry. The process for electro-biocatalytic CO2 fixation was recently published and is…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/turning-harmful-co2-useful-chemicals
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Protection against game damage - 13/01/2022
Young forest plants need protecting against damage and as a result it’s often hard to miss the colourful plastic tree guard sleeves when out walking in forests. These tree guard sleeves are neither pleasing to the eye nor sustainable. Bernd Schairer UG from Albstadt has developed sapling protectors made of wood that contain no plastics, metals or chemicals, do not require removal and disposal, and are produced in a socially responsible way.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/sapling-protectors-made-domestic-wood-simple-effective
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Press release - 12/01/2022
Chitin is the main component of insect carapaces and ensures that they are both stable and flexible. The Chitinfluid research project, funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, focuses on the use of chitin in construction and aims to process chitin and its derivatives into sustainable materials. In a hybrid symposium under the auspices of Prof. Sabine Laschat from the University of Stuttgart, the project team discussed the current state of research…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/insect-carapace-sustainable-building-material
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Dossier - 17/11/2021
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.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/dossiers/biorefinery-new-paths-build-our-tomorrow
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Compostable nappies - 14/10/2021
In an EU-funded project, the Tübingen-based biotech company Novis is working with international partners to develop a fully compostable nappy that contains no plastic parts. This could reduce the huge quantities of used disposable nappies that have been produced to date and the enormous costs of disposal, as well as avoiding the greenhouse gases produced when they are incinerated.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/nappies-sustainable-bioeconomy
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Start-up PROSERVATION - sustainable packaging - 21/09/2021
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.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/husk-substitute-polystyrene-packaging-materials-good-conscience
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Press release - 30/08/2021
In August 2021, the BioMat Pavilion 2021 was inaugurated on the campus of the University of Stuttgart in a ceremonial setting and in compliance with the hygiene concept. The core of the elegantly curved lightweight construction is an active-bending structure made of natural fibers, reminiscent of bamboo. It was developed as part of the "LeichtPRO" research project.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/biegsam-wie-bambus-belastbar-und-leicht
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Plastics from the field - 12/08/2021
Huge amounts of waste are produced both during food production and by consumers. The Conversion Technologies of Biobased Resources group at the University of Hohenheim’s Institute of Agricultural Engineering has developed a process to convert this biomass into hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), the highly potent basic chemical that is used to produce plastics.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/great-potential-biological-residues
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Press release - 27/07/2021
The Hallertau is Germany's largest hop-growing region. During harvesting, hop bine chaff is left over, which is converted into environmentally friendly bio natural gas on site in a biogas plant. But that is not the end of the utilization chain for this fiber plant. Researchers at the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) have used the plant-containing biogas digestate to produce a composite material that can be…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/furniture-biogas-plant
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Alpha-Protein GmbH - 27/07/2021
Mealworms instead of fish meal and soybean meal - this is what the sustainable future of feed production looks like as Alpha-Protein GmbH see it. The company has built a highly efficient automated production plant in which residual materials from local food production are used to breed mealworms.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/insect-farming-sustainability
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Press release - 09/07/2021
Refuels are renewable fuels that can be produced in different ways. When they are mixed and processed such that they meet the existing fuel standards, they are suited for all types of combustion engines. This is the result of the latest vehicle and fleet tests within the project “reFuels – Rethinking Fuels” at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Compared to fully fossil fuels, refuel mixes allow for a CO2 reduction by 25% at least. Moreover,…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/refuels-are-suited-wide-use
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Press release - 07/07/2021
The European Union is largely dependent on imports of white phosphorus (P4), a strategic raw material for the food and pharmaceutical industries. To tackle this challenge, the newly started four-year EU-funded project FlashPhos – led by the University of Stuttgart – will recover at a large scale high-quality white phosphorus and other raw materials using sewage sludge as input material.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/schatzsuche-im-klaerschlamm
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Start-up kernique catch the zeitgeist - 29/06/2021
A delicious vegan nut snack that uses no sugar, artificial additives, gluten or palm oil, is full of essential nutrients, and is part of a commitment to environmental and social sustainability. Impossible? An Esslingen-based start-up called kernique proves otherwise. The start-up is currently planning a crowdfunding phase that offers a lucrative deal for investors. The idea catches the zeitgeist, but what exactly makes it stand out?
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/news/nut-snack-sustainable-ecological-concept
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Press release - 15/06/2021
Microorganisms are the oldest, most abundant, and most diverse life forms on earth and offer enormous potential for biotechnological applications. To date, however, only a fraction of them could be isolated and cultivated. The “MicroMATRIX” research project, funded with € 1.5 million by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), aims to shed more light on the microbial darkness.
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/biooekonomie-von-der-wg-ins-mikroben-eigenheim
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Press release - 27/05/2021
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…
https://www.biooekonomie-bw.de/en/articles/pm/coffee-s-pulp-waste-becomes-organic-compost
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