Restoring arable soils with catch crops

Catch crops such as field mustard or legumes are small all-rounders for agriculture: they serve as animal feed or remain on the field as green manure to prepare or improve the soil for the next main crop. In this way, plants are supplied with nutrients, humus formation is promoted, the water, nutrient and carbon balance in the soil is stabilized and erosion is prevented. However, their potential as pollutant removers has so far been underestimated. 

Mushroom-based filters for water purification

Every year, trillions of liters of wastewater are treated in sewage treatment plants. What flows out of households, businesses, and industry is processed in three elaborate purification stages. However, current treatment facilities are still unable to remove 100% of all pollutants. As a result, persistent chemicals, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals continue to find their way into bodies of water – and therefore into nature. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Straubing have been working on a solution.

Climate-neutral marine fuel from wastewater

Methanol is a sought-after chemical that is used for fuel production, among other things, and is made from fossil raw materials. The start-up Icodos - a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - has developed an environmentally friendly alternative for the production of this all-purpose chemical: instead of crude oil and natural gas, biogas from waste streams such as sewage sludge is used as a raw material source in combination with renewable electricity to produce biomethane and e-methanol.

Dye molecules of photosynthesis imitated

For millions of years, plants have been obtaining energy from photosynthesis. In this process, carbon and water are converted into sugar and oxygen with the help of sunlight. Imitating this natural metabolic pathway technically would have many advantages and is therefore an ambitious goal of numerous research teams. Chemists at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, have now come one step closer to artificial photosynthesis.

Hormones control interaction between plant and root fungus

The majority of plants live in symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. This subterranean symbiosis is equally beneficial for plants and root fungi. But how do such symbioses develop and how do plants decide whether or not to interact? A team led by symbiosis researcher Caroline Gutjahr from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam has provided new insights into this.

Ideas sought for the use of biogenic resources

The economy is still based on fossil fuels which leads to problems such as climate change, energy crisis and resource scarcity. Ways are therefore needed to break this dependency. The Joachim Herz Foundation would like to support precisely such solutions with the innovate! Fund. According to the call for proposals, it supports transfer-oriented research projects with high-risk approaches that make biogenic resources usable for a fossil-free future. Three interdisciplinary research teams are being sought.

Faecal matter as fertilizer in agriculture

Since the 19th century, phosphorus has been used as a fertilizer in agriculture to help plants grow and thrive. To do this, the material has to be mined or artificially produced, which consumes resources. In order to save resources, the recycling of human faeces can be considered. However, due to the Fertilizer Ordinance, this may only be used for research purposes and not in agriculture. A team from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) has now provided new data to adapt the regulation.