The Institute for Circular Economy of Bio:Polymers (ibp) at Hof University of Applied Sciences recently held its third symposium under the motto “Bioplastics – Sustainable Solutions for Industry and Science”. The online conference was free of charge and focused on the synthesis, processing, application and degradation of bioplastics and the associated current challenges, limits and opportunities of bioplastics. A total of seven plenary lectures with a panel discussion, 15 scientific lectures in four sessions and a poster session on the respective key topics awaited the participants at the two-day conference. An award for the best presentation went to Celia Katharina Falkenreck from the Institute of Materials Engineering at the University of Kassel.
Kassel received the award for the best lecture for her presentation. Picture: Hof University of Applied Sciences;
After the welcome and opening of the conference by University President Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Lehmann and Institute Director Prof. Dr. Michael Nase, the conference began with a plenary lecture by Niklas Voß (FKuR Kunststoff GmbH) on the topic of “Opportunities and challenges with bioplastics”. Institute Director Prof. Dr. Michael Nase followed on directly from this with his plenary lecture “… and what answers research has and will have”. He presented the state of the art from the perspective of a scientist. Prof. Nase summed up his presentation with the statement:
On the one hand, bioplastics will experience great growth in the coming years for short-lived products such as packaging and other disposable products and, on the other hand, building on our research into natural stabilizers, they will also be a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based plastics for long-lasting products.”
Prof. Dr. Michael Nase, Head of Institute ibp
Innovative conference concept
Kübra Aslan and Lucas Großmann, who moderated the conference, then presented the innovative concept of the conference with presentation pitches and voting: Each scientist then gave a two-minute pitch on their presentation, which was released for voting. This was used to plan the four lecture sessions on the second day, some of which ran in parallel. In this way, it was possible to avoid the lectures with greater interest being held at the same time. In addition, three of the favored presentations were allocated separate timeslots and given additional discussion time. The results of the voting were announced on the same day. After the lecture pitches, the conference continued with the second plenary lecture by Prof. Dr. Andreas Künkel with the topic “Polymer Biodegradability 2.0: A Holistic View on Polymer Biodegradation in Natural and Engineered Environments”.
Image: Hof University of Applied Sciences;
Panel discussion on the potential of bioplastics
Afterwards, there was the opportunity to exchange ideas during a relaxed “Meet & Greet” during the lunch break in various online rooms and to view the poster session in parallel. The posters were presented online and there was the opportunity to exchange ideas live with the authors in the corresponding online rooms. The poster session was followed by a lively and exciting panel discussion on the topic of “Production, research and application of a bioplastic – limits, possibilities, potentials”. The presentations by Dr. Alexander Piontek (Nature Compound GmbH), Andreas Kappel (Der Grüne Punkt) and Isabell Kleiber (Institut für Kreislaufwirtschaft der Bio:Polymere) laid the foundation for the discussion.
Award ceremony
The second day of the symposium started with the TOP 1 & TOP 2 presentations. The subsequent two parallel sessions were well attended. At lunchtime, there was another opportunity for personal discussions at a digital meet & greet. This was followed by the TOP 3 presentation and the parallel presentation sessions. After the presentation sessions, there was a coffee break and the opportunity to take a digital machine tour focusing on extrusion, injection molding and compounding. Towards the end of the second day, the award ceremony for the best scientific presentation “Best Talk” took place. Celia Katharina Falkenreck from the Institute of Materials Engineering at the University of Kassel received the prize for the best talk with her presentation “Impact of accelerated aging on injection molded regenerated cellulose fiber reinforced bio polyamides”.
Thanks to the active support of the entire ibp team, the conference ran almost without a hitch.
