Press releases and news 2013

Two candidates from the Fraunhofer IGB were invited to the Fraunhofer symposium "Network Value" to participate in the symposium’s "ideas contest". And both were awarded funding.

Within the HiPerDry project, a consortium of twelve partners from industry and research will develop a new drying technology for hygroscopic plastics. The new approach combining microwave heating with superheated steam convective drying will not only lead to significant savings in energy costs, but also allow time efficient drying of thermo-sensitive bioplastics.

After completing a higher doctoral degree in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of the Saarland, Homburg, in 1985, Susanne Bailer subsequently acquired permission to teach independently at professorial level at Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.

Dr. Petra Kluger, one of the two heads of the Fraunhofer IGB Cell and Tissue Engineering department and manager of the department’s Biomaterials and Test Systems group, accepted a professorship at the Reutlingen University on November 1, 2013. She is to hold a so-called “shared professorship”, which gives her the option of working in parallel at the university and at a research institute.

In the EU-funded project MicroMilk, European SMEs together with the University of Hohenheim and the Fraunhofer IGB have developed a novel method for pasteurization of milk with microwaves. The system preserves the valuable components of milk, and is also suitable for heating viscous and concentrated dairy products due to minimized fouling formation. As a result cleaning efforts can be reduced and detergents are saved. In the follow-up project MicroMilk Demo, the system will be transferred into industrial practice.

Within the EU-funded FoAM-BUILD project, a consortium consisting of nine partners will develop next generation External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS) for new build and retrofitting applications. The Fraunhofer IGB is involved to develop a new biofilm protection system.

Phosphorus is an important plant nutrient for agriculture; however, phosphate rock reserves are limited. In the EU-funded PhosFarm project, research and SME partners aim to make organic phosphorus from agricultural residues accessible as a resource for phosphate fertiliser salts. Using immobilised enzymes, organic phosphorus compounds are released from the organic matter and recovered as phosphate.

What sounds like a dream of the future has already been the subject of research for a few years: simply printing out tissue and organs. Now scientists have further refined the technology and are able to produce various tissue types. The bio-ink-printers of the Fraunhofer IGB will be shown at this year's BIOTECHNICA in Hanover from October, 8th to 10th.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB and its European partners have developed several effective processes for eliminating persistent pollutants from wastewater. Some of these processes generate reactive species which can be used to purify even highly polluted landfill leachate while another can also remove selected pollutants which are present in very small quantities with polymer adsorber particles.

Three young researchers have been recognized for producing final dissertations that demonstrate scientific excellence. Their findings include new methods of naturally preserving fresh foods with hops extracts, an ultra-compact microscope that makes it possible to examine hundreds of prepared samples simultaneously, and the use of protein-protein interaction analysis to nip fungal pathogens in the bud.