Chemistry

With their start-up Vyld, Ines Schiller and Melanie Schichan have developed the world's first tampon made from seaweed, the ‘Tangpon’. After positive tests with customers in 2023, the algae tampon has recently been approved and started being used in various sanitary facilities in Germany.

"Tangpons" in offices and at events

According to Vyld, the biodegradable tampon is now also convincing those who provide such hygiene products - for example in offices, fitness studios and at major events.

With the LOEWE Centre for Insect Biotechnology and Bioresources, the city of Giessen has developed into a world-leading location for insect biotechnology. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME and Justus Liebig University are jointly researching biotechnological methods to develop new products from insects. One focus of the work is on sustainable, insect-based technologies for the circular bioeconomy. Now the breeding of insects is also to be established on a large scale in Giessen.

The wood-processing industry produces large quantities of wood waste, which until now has either been disposed of at great expense or utilised for energy. Waste wood treated with wood preservatives can currently only be incinerated in special large-scale power plants, as the exhaust air has to be cleaned of the harmful substances. In the ‘H2Wood – BlackForest’ project, Fraunhofer researchers and their partners have now specifically sought alternative uses for wood waste in the Black Forest region, which is heavily characterised by wood processing.

How can nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which are removed from the environment through the cultivation and consumption of food, be returned? This question was the focus of the ‘zirkulierBAR’ project, which was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 2021 to 2024 as part of the REGION.innovativ funding programme. Following the completion of the three-year project, which was coordinated by the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), the consortium has now summarised its results and findings in a handbook.

Humus is known to be good for the soil. The complex mixture of organic matter, such as dead animal and plant remains, serves as a food source for plants and soil microbes alike and is therefore a driving force for plant growth and soil health. It is primarily the humic substances contained in humus that ensure that moisture and nutrients are bound in the soil, convert microbial biomass into nutrient-rich biostimulants and make these available to plants. In practice, however, things often look different.

More than 9,000 public sewage treatment plants in Germany ensure that wastewater is biologically purified, thereby minimizing pollution of local water bodies. However, valuable nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are also lost during conventional treatment.

As an intermediate product of many metabolic pathways, acetyl-CoA is a central component in the production of vital biomolecules. The molecule binds carbon dioxide (CO₂) and is therefore crucial for how efficiently the greenhouse gas is incorporated into metabolic processes in order to ultimately produce biomass.

Vegan cheese alternatives have one thing in common: they contain neither casein nor whey protein – although these proteins are essential for the characteristic flavour and texture of cheese made from animal milk. The biotech start-up Infinite Roots, which specialises in sustainable foods made from mushroom mycelium, now wants to remedy this shortcoming. Together with Hamburg University of Technology, the company is developing a technology to utilise whey as a nutrient for mycelium fermentation.