News

In the winter semester 2023/2024, the Chair of Circular Economy offered its own sorting internship for the first time. Students from the "Municipal Solid Waste Management" module sorted waste at a sorting table. Different fractions were collected. Biogas and composting experiments were then carried out with organic material from the waste.

The fourth "WIRE" workshop in the framework of the European "COST" network took place from the fourth to the fifth of October 2023 (https://www.cost.eu/). WIRE stands for Waste Biorefinery Technologies for Accelerating Sustainable Energy Processes. "COST" stands for European Cooperation in Science and Technology. Prof. Abendroth used the opportunity to present the research focus of the Department of Circular Economy to the public for the first time. This was done under the motto of "circular microbiomes".

Together with the TU Dresden, the Universidad Industrial de Santander (Bucaramange, Colombia) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), the BTU's Department of Circular Economy conducted a comprehensive comparison of life cycle assessment analyses in the composting of biowaste and green waste. The results were very heterogeneous and show the need for more standardisation. With this aim, among other things, sensible system boundaries were proposed (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X23005688).

In the summer semester of 2023, the chair was visited by students from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). We thank Samanta Guadalupe Perez Escalante and Mitzy Josefina Lopez Lopez for their collaboration in our research projects. As a result, an extension of the cooperation agreement between the BTU and the UNAM is now planned. Prof. Dr. habil. Abendroth would like to act as a contact person here in the future. In March 2024 Prof. Abendroth will travel to the UNAM to teach the students there in a multi-week course on anaerobic digestion and anaerobic microbiomes.

Since July 2023, our department has finally its own logo. The logo contains the short name of the department (FG Krw - "Fachgebiet Kreislaufwirtschaft"). The expression "circular microbiomes" is a metaphor for the use of complex microbiomes in the circular economy. This is intended to emphasize the focus of the department on biological treatment processes. The logo was designed to match the university's corporate design. We are grateful to "Die Echolotsen" for the development, joint brainstorming and the final implementation.

On June 9th, 2023 Prof. Dr. Abendroth successfully defended his habilitation in the field of "circular economy and bioenergy". In his teaching rehearsal he spoke about exotic high-performance organisms for anaerobic degradation processes and in a subsequent scientific lecture he addressed the influence of light on anaerobic microbiomes. His habilitation thesis is entitled "Towards multifunctional microbiomes: the search for new commands for programming anaerobic microbiomes".

Special thanks go to Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Christina Dornack, who supervised the work at the TU Dresden.

The company Pro-Entec east GmbH has developed a new technology, which can increase the formation of biogas in digestion towers from waste water treatment by 50% or more. Nitrogen elimination is also significantly improved. A first demonstrator has already been set up in a municipal sewage treatment plant. The department of circular economy of the BTU accompanied the project scientifically in the frame of the Micro4Biogas EU-project and supported Pro-Entec east in characterizing the underlying microbiome. The results have now been compiled in a scientific publication: https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/9/5/471

Currently, the Department of Circular Economy is working on the revival of the former internship on waste sorting. On this occasion, the Institute for Waste Management and Circular Economy at the TU Dresden invited us to sort together. We would like to thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Christina Dornack, Dr.-Ing. Roman Maletz and Benjamin Schwan M.Sc.

On March 27, 2023, employees of the BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg visit the production halls of the GICON company. Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Hübner, Vice President for Research and Transfer, the Department of Structural Change and the Chair of Circular economy have expressed their interest in continuing their joint research with GICON on the topic of Power2Gas in the future.

Excursion to the Kommunaler Abfallentsorgungsverband Niederlausitz (KAEV) with students from the module "Municipal Solid Waste Management". Illustration with permission of KAEV (Public Relations Officer Liane Schieban).

Joint inspection of the closed landfill in Cottbus with students of the module Landfill Technology