Agriculture

Roasting chestnuts, recycling walnuts: turning festive treats into sustainable new materials

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Nut shells contain cells with unique interlocking structures that make them interesting for transformation into strong, biodegradable materials. © Elena Veselova, Shutterstock.com

EU-funded researchers are exploring how to make strong and sustainable new materials from hard-to-crack nutshells. By Jack McGovan Dr Notburga Gierlinger, an Austrian researcher specialising in the study of the structure and composition of plant materials, is particularly fascinated by nuts. Confronted with a pistachio or walnut, she would open it with caution, intrigued by … Read more

Waste not, want not: turning food waste into fertile soil for sustainable growth

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Efforts to recycle food production waste into natural fertilisers are a win-win for farmers and the environment. © LamoonfilmPhoto, Shutterstock.com

EU-funded researchers are turning food processing waste into a valuable resource, transforming discarded biomaterials into natural fertilisers. By Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro In Catalonia there are 7.7 million residents and approximately 7.9 million pigs. That’s over one pig per person. Large-scale pig farming has led to an excess of nitrogen in the soil, a problem shared … Read more