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With a view to resource-efficient, climate-friendly and sustainable production, this industry-led project is developing innovative, commercially viable products and processes based on existing by-products and waste streams – thereby establishing new value chains. The raw materials used are residues from vegetable production and wood processing. The target products include health-promoting additives for animal feed, fermentable sugars for the production of the valuable compound astaxanthin, enzymatically modified feed additives, and tannins as natural tanning agents for leather processing. To this end, the project brings together companies and academic partners from across different sectors in a joint consortium.
The Environmental Technology working group’s focus areas within the project:
- Screening the selected biomass for mobilisable valuable substances and identifying fields of application and potential
- Process and technology development for press cake and press juice as primary products derived from waste materials
- Adaptation of selected processes for field-scale and decentralised use
- The impact of fluctuating feedstock throughputs and qualities on the product ranges
- Provision of product samples for application testing
Duration: 2017–2020 · Funded by: INTERREG Va (Germany–Netherlands, European Union) · Partners: German and Dutch companies · Contact: Prof. Dr Matthias Kleinke, Britta Brands
Together with local partners, the Environmental Technology Working Group is supporting a project in Rangpur District in northern Bangladesh: the establishment of horticultural cultivation systems on the sandbanks that form anew each year along the banks of the Brahmaputra/Teesta river system.
Poor families, who are displaced by the rivers’ recurring erosion, grow crops such as rice, maize, pumpkins, vegetables and fruit on these banks and keep livestock on these otherwise ‘unusable’ areas. Access to these marginal areas ensures food and livelihoods for the poorest of the poor.
The aim of the project is to identify new technological innovations with the involvement of the local population – and thus to help lift the people of the region out of their extreme circumstances.
Duration: 2015–2016 · Project lead and contact: Prof. Dr Matthias Kleinke
The flooding of the Issel and the Rhine in June 2016 led to very high groundwater levels, which caused significant problems and damage to agriculture. Against this backdrop, the project is using the Issel as a case study to investigate in detail how flooding and flood defence measures affect groundwater levels and agriculture.
Essentially, the project is working towards the following objectives:
- A general, accessible explanation of the formation of groundwater flooding
- Establishment of an objective, scientifically based framework for understanding the formation of groundwater flooding in the study area
- Case study of the 2016 floods
- Case study on the impact of the planned flood polders on groundwater
- Impact of flood protection measures on agricultural use in the region
- Development of measures and concepts for operational groundwater lowering
- Communication of the processes and results to the public, including through an information event
Duration: 2018–2020 · Funded by: German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU), in cooperation with ProAqua Ingenieurgesellschaft für Wasser- und Umwelttechnik mbH, Aachen · Project leader and contact: Prof. Dr Matthias Kleinke
