Building rings without fire
The "thermal utilization", or incineration, of waste materials, often comes at the end of the utilization of industrial products. This applies, for example, to almost 2 million tons of plastic waste incinerated annually in Germany alone. That's why we develop processes and products to convert linear utilization chains into circular processes. This minimizes waste generation, prevents the release of CO2, and saves valuable resources. In addition to technical cycles with technical materials, we build biological cycles: Cradle to Cradle, "origin to origin". For this purpose, natural fibers are obtained from various sources at the Chair of Wood Technology. For example, necessary additives such as adhesives and dyes are developed biologically. In this way, we enable "renewable" products that are not dependent on petroleum.
>Cool< Packages
At the Chair of Wood Technology and Fiber Materials Engineering, the plastic packaging used in e-commerce for the increasing shipment of foods and medicines requiring refrigeration is being rethought: The previously used polystyrene and other plastics are difficult to recycle. They, therefore, often end up in waste incineration. Packaging with recycled paper fiber mats is a sustainable alternative. These can be fed into the waste paper cycle, which is Germany's best functioning recyclable material cycle. Comparatively easily, a paper fiber can be reprocessed up to 6 times and thus becomes a valuable raw material that can be recycled and obtained from renewable resources. Furthermore, the new material gets its special properties by selecting suitable natural fibers and new processes for their processing.