From egg boxes and coffee capsules to technical packaging: with innovative and sustainable packaging solutions PAPACKS wants to make the world a little greener. The vision of founder and CEO Tahsin Dag and his team is to avoid plastic. The Cologne-based company, which was founded in 2013, relies exclusively on natural resources and residues, mainly from agriculture, which are processed into intelligent packaging through a special fibre casting process.
On average, each German buys around 60 items of clothing a year - not counting underwear. Conventional production of one kilogram of cotton consumes up to 10,000 liters of water. The high water consumption is one of many reasons why the textile industry is considering a recycling economy. So far, however, with the exception of some synthetic fibers, textiles have been based exclusively on virgin fibers.
Nadja Henke has a great job: she brings color into life - at least in animal feed and cosmetics. The young systems biologist is developing a sustainable process in which bacteria produce the antioxidant pigment astaxanthin under economic conditions.
Short-sleeved, full of innovative ideas and absolutely convinced of the benefits and necessity of a sustainable and bio-based industry – that is what Uwe D'Agnone in a nutshell. The 53-year-old inventor and CEO of Creapaper is committed to the sustainable, resource-efficient use of raw materials in the paper industry.
Around the globe, plastic packaging and disposable tableware makes up a significant portion of discarded waste. This problem is particularly acute in India, where policy makers are now pushing for change as part of broader efforts to curb the flood of rubbish. Some Indian states have even instituted a ban on plastic.
“There are only 34 harvests left until 2050, by which time there will be 10 billion people on the planet. The time for change is now,” says Guido Ritter. In Central Europe, we live in an affluent society, while other places are characterised by scarcity.
Cool, refreshing drinks are always welcome during the summer time. But many customers shy away from high sugar contents and too many chemical ingredients in commercially available sports drinks. Therefore, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising developed a novel, protein-rich summer drink made from sweet lupins. The production of this new drink should be feasible for any brewery. The technique was developed in cooperation with the Technical University Munich as well as partners from industry.
Our bodies, windows or plastic bottles – all of them are made up of different molecules. The big difference however: while the molecules in the human body or other living organisms are in constant exchange with their surroundings, artificially produced material is not. This in turn directly affects their ability to break down after being used.
The vanadium-dependent nitrogenase is an enzyme that catalyses two important processes: On the one hand it converts atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to ammonia, on the other hand it reduces carbon monoxide (CO) to hydrocarbons. Today, both reactions are run on a big scale by chemical catalyses to produce ammonia and fuels for industry. In additon, ammonia is used as synthetic fertilizer to ensure the food production for at least half of the world’s population.
Until now, converting organic waste into fuel has not been economically viable. Excessively high temperatures and too much energy were required. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) managed to significantly reduce the temperature and energy requirements for an integral step of the chemical process by using a novel catalyst concept: they confined the reaction to small spaces inside zeolite crystals.