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Imprint
Inventory for biogenic material potential of the German food and biotechnology industry
Project
Project code: 22001910
Contract period: 01.09.2011
- 31.12.2012
Budget: 166,938 Euro
Purpose of research: Inventory & Assessment
The intensification of biomass utilisation as a fuel and raw material is increasingly leading to conflicts about the use of biomass, particularly in relation to safeguarding an adequate food supply. Against this background it is important to primarily use those biomass resources which are not suitable for direct food supply as efficiently as possible. In addition to the biogenic residues from agriculture, forestry and the local authorities, the biogenic residues from the food industry also play an important role here. Although a few of these have already been used for biotechnological purposes, there is as yet little information on whether and to what extent these residues can be used systematically, for example as part of regional bio-refinery concepts. Similar issues apply to biogenic residues originating from the biotech industry. The indispensable requirement for such more extensive utilisation concepts, however - and the objective of the research project carried out here - is to record and evaluate the sector-specific amount and the current recycling of residues from the food, semi-luxury food and biotech industry in Germany in more detail. The data collection was carried out by means of company surveys as well as indirect estimates of production-specific residue quantities.
Based on the survey of the amount of residue in the German food and biotech industry carried out with the aid of interviews, the estimate of sectorspecific residue factors and an extrapolation based on this, biogenic residues amounting to an annual total of between 13 and 14 million Mg were derived for these industrial sectors in Germany (data in TS/a): a comparison of the recorded residual amounts per sector with literature values and internal plausibility considerations showed that the values obtained overall can be assessed as being sufficiently reliable.
The largest quantities of residue - 6.1 and 3.3 million Mg TS/a - occur in the industrial sectors “Production of vegetable and animal oils and fats” and “Production of other foods (esp. sugar) (cf. Table 1).
Further investigations are required in order to be able to provide regionspecific statements about the quantity and possible alternative uses of the different biogenic residues, however. A comparison of the residue quantities from the food and biotech industry determined in this study with the quantities of other biogenic waste fractions shows that there is fundamentally great utilisation potential in the food industry. With all possible changes of utilisation one has to consider whether and to what extent changes could lead to problems elsewhere, however. This particularly applies to residues which are currently used in the feedstuff sector. The results of the present study show that the best approach to solving this question consists in regionally differentiated “case by case considerations” because companyspecific, regional and environmental factors can be taken into account as appropriate in such projects.
Section overview
Subjects
- Resource management
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute of Environmental Engineering and Bioengineering (IUB)
