Plastic bottles

BIO-PET in plastic bottles

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.

Ice cream

Lupins in the food industry

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.

Smartphone

Better grip and breaking resistance

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.

Arm chair

From waste to olive leather

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.

Searching for synergy in the ocean

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.

Patron-goddess of poultry

Dagmar Köhler-Repp was in her mid-twenties when she took the brave step into self-employment. Immediately after completing her studies, the graduate founded the veterinary vaccine company Ripac-Labor. What began as a one-person operation in the basement of her parents' apartment in Berlin in 2001 is now a high-tech company based in Science Park Potsdam-Golm. In 2014, the successful businesswoman and mother of two was named Brandenburg Entrepreneur of the Year.

Using plants as molecule factories

Chess is a popular sport in his homeland. As a native of Ukraine, Yuri Gleba feels a connection with the game of kings. His motto: “Entrepreneurs should be able to think like a Grand Master.” Today, the businessman with a doctorate in plant physiology and genetics has proven this motto with his companies Nomad Biosciences and Icon Genetics. The business world is where the 65-year-old feels at home: “Science, politics, your competitors – you have to consider aspects from highly different areas.

Cutting a swathe with her gene-scissors

Paris, 1981. The twelve-year-old Emmanuelle comes home from school, where she has been studying her favourite subject – biology. The girl says to her mother: “One day, I’m going to work at the Pasteur Institute!” A confident prediction, but Emmanuelle Charpentier did indeed go on to complete her doctoral thesis at the renowned Parisian research centre. However, the twelve-year-old Charpentier could not foresee that 30 years later, as a weathered biologist, she would be responsible for a minor revolution in her field.

A microbiologist with entrepreneurial vision

It is not the first company that Ulrich Rabausch had made a start on, but it is the first to which the microbiologist from the University of Hamburg has devoted his professional career. The company is occupied with the production of health-promoting, cosmetically active ingredients for the cosmetics industry. “I’ve always found the business side of things to be exciting,” says Rabausch, who already in his student days dipped his toe into business founding with the creation of the firm FrutAmazon.