At the Hannover Messe, Festo presents a path to the circular economy: technology and biology merge. Algae efficiency can be increased to a hundred times that of land plants in bioreactors equipped with appropriate sensors, control technology, and automation. This demonstrates that they have a high potential for a climate-neutral circular economy. Festo demonstrated a first bioreactor at Hannover Messe 2022 as part of the PhotoBionicCell research project. This year, the company will present the next step in the industrialization of biological transformation.
The integrated nature with automation technology for the climate change
Our world is changing to an unprecedented degree. World population is growing and the consequences of climate change are already being felt. We will have a liveable future only if people, animals and the plant world live in harmony. This is why at Festo they consider the bioeconomy the economic system of the future. “We need to integrate nature into automation technology. Only when technology and biology merge can we tackle climate change and make the circular economy a reality. By cultivating biomass on a large scale through our automation technology, Festo is making an important contribution to this,” explained Dr Nina Gaißert, Corporate Portfolio Projects and BioTech Automation during her keynote at the Hannover Messe Press Preview.
Biology as inspiration
That is why the bionics team is increasingly working on photosynthesis. At Hannover Messe 2022, Festo presented its first bioreactor with the PhotoBionicCell project. This year, the company is presenting the next step on the way to industrialising the biological transformation. Innovative bioreactors can be used to automatically cultivate algae and control their growth. The algae cells, through photosynthesis in their chloroplasts, convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and chemical energy carriers or organic recyclable materials. With automation technology from Festo, e.g. for optimal gassing and mixing, algae can absorb one hundred times more carbon dioxide than land plants such as trees or maize.
Biological recyclables for climate-neutral end products
As part of their metabolic processes, algae produce fatty acids, colour pigments and surfactants. These can be used as the raw materials for the production of medicines, food, plastics or cosmetics. Unlike petroleum-based products, the biobased end products can usually be biodegraded and, in keeping with an overall circular economy, always recycled in a climate-neutral manner. For example, the production of a shampoo container requires about one litre of petroleum. If the shampoo bottle is incinerated after use, it releases an additional three kilogrammes of CO2 and thus has a negative CO2 balance. If bio-plastic based on algae is used instead, three kilogrammes of CO2 are absorbed, which are released again when the bottle is disposed of. Thus, the cycle is in balance.
