Milk is not only an important food source, it also has the potential to win over fashion fans. It is also the raw material for the small textile company Qmilch from Lower Saxony. Fibres can be produced from the milk protein casein. In Germany alone, around 1.9 tonnes of milk is accrued each year, which cannot be used in the food industry. This includes the colostrum of calving cows or milk filtrate accrued in the production of cheese.
The eco-friendly blocks consist mainly of a mixture of wood fibres and a carbohydrate-rich raw material such as potato starch. Large quantities of the fibres are accrued as a by-product of the wood industry – up to 40% of the raw material. The majority is processed into paper. Thermoplastic composites are a new product from which the bricks are produced. The bricks have a wood-like appearance, high resistance and can be dyed.
From espresso to functional clothing: the Taiwanese company Singtex is a pioneer in using coffee grounds for the production of sustainable textile fibres. The biggest challenge in the production of its “S.Café” clothing range was the neutralisation of the coffee aroma. First, the coffee grounds are crushed into microscopic pieces and then mixed with polyester fibres. Hugo Boss, Nike and Vaude use these fibres to make sportswear and leisurewear.
With the help of modern breeding procedures, researchers from the Fraunhofer Society have transformed the dandelion from a wild plant into an agricultural crop, which is robust and high yielding. Together with the tyre company Continental, a pilot plant for the production of dandelion-based rubber has been set up in Germany. The sap from the dandelion roots is extracted from this pilot plant.
Cosmetic manufacturers are increasingly using bioactive ingredients in their products, including enzymes. Enzymes are biomolecules, which are produced in biological mini-factories. These biocatalysts accelerate natural processes and can take on many different tasks. Some can help to smooth out wrinkles, others remove impurities from the skin.
Renewable resources provide the basis for biobased plastics, which are used for different plastic products. Most drinking bottles are made from the plastic PET (polyethylene terephthalate). This polymer is prepared from two different chemical building blocks, which include the monoethylene glycol (MEG). Nowadays, MEG can be produced from bioalcohol, which is made from sugar cane. Microbes such as yeast feed on cane sugar, fermenting it into the alcohol MEG.
As nitrogen fixers, they are great fertilisers for German soil. In addition, their seeds are rich in protein. Which is why they are used as an alternative source of protein. Researchers have developed a process to use the proteins from the blue lupine to produce food. At Prolupin GmbH, a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute, the seeds are first peeled and processed into paper-thin flakes. The flakes are then de-oiled and unwanted aromas are extracted.
If a mobile phone is dropped, the display often shatters. The Japanese manufacturer of mobile phones has dealt with this problem and produced the first mobile phone with a bio-based plastic touchscreen. However, getting there wasn’t easy. Although there have been numerous transparent plastics to substitute the glass to date, these were not, however, strong enough to replace the glass display.
Olive leaves fall by the tonne during the annual harvest of olives in the Mediterranean and until now have been burned as green waste. Two German companies Wet-green GmbH and N-Zyme Biotech GmbH have developed a process that extracts the tannins from the olives leaves in an aqueous solution. This reduces toxic acids and salts in the tanning process. The leather has IMO approval and allows the production of premium leather according to the IVN Natural Leather Standard.
Even as a child, Nicole Dubilier was fascinated by the sea. Today, the award-winning researcher lets out a hearty laugh at the thought that a worm was responsible for bringing about an abrupt change in her academic career. Her discovery of the symbiotic three-way relationship between a marine worm and two kinds of bacteria was published in 2001 in Nature, and brought fame to the Hamburg-born scientist. Today, on top of a position as director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, she counts among the world's leading microbiologists.