2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

ENVIRONMENT 97 Dipl.-Ing. Siegfried Egner Against the background of worldwide discussions concerning the greenhouse effect and the shortage of resources, resource-efﬁcient economic management and protection of the en- vironment are further gaining in importance. Resource-conserving industrial activities and protection of the environment are interdisciplinary tasks requiring extensive research and de- velopment. In this context, the environment business area at the Fraunhofer IGB stands for technological developments which contribute towards avoiding negative environmental im- pacts and ensuring technological progress – above all by interweaving ecological and econom- ic sustainability. Typically, tasks and approaches in the environment business area are often di- rectly linked with topics in the energy and chemistry business areas. In the framework of a number of joint European and national projects with partners from re- search and industry, the Fraunhofer IGB is developing processes and system components which help to save resources such as raw materials and water, are climate-friendly, improve material recycling and in general contribute to improving the use of renewable resources. An example is the innovative DEUS 21 infrastructure concept for semi-decentralized energy and water man- agement. This is being further developed to allow its use in urban redevelopment. Another ex- ample is research on how to avoid the emission of particulate or dissolved, persistent or endo- crine micro-pollutants. Approaches to minimizing the demand for ﬁnite resources include the substitution of chemical solvents with dry physical processes, for instance in the industrial cleaning of structural compo- nents, the service life extension of metal-working lubricants, the recovery of substances from agro-industrial process water as high-quality fertilizers or the generation of algae biomass for material and energetic utilization. A common additional feature of our research projects is proof of the sustainability of the prod- ucts and processes developed. This involves the systematic analysis of all environmental im- pacts of a product during its life cycle – from production via use to its disposal or recycling – from a holistic perspective which takes into account both economical and ecological aspects. We perform this analysis called life-cycle assessment together with various specialized partners. Comprehensive, complex projects in the environment business area are carried out by inter- disciplinary teams drawn from the natural sciences and engineering. Access to further techni- cal competence and opportunities for collaboration on projects arises through the Fraunhofer IGB’s participation in the Fraunhofer Cleaning Technology, Building Innovation and Water Sys- tems (SysWater) Alliances, as well as in the national technology platform SusChem Deutschland. Moreover, the Fraunhofer IGB has excellent international networks, particularly within Europe.

2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

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