Press and Media

For the first time, a comprehensive nationwide waste strategy has been developed in a country in the Gulf region. The project was commissioned by the Environment Public Authority (EPA) of Kuwait. Over a period of five years, the german Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental-, Safety-, and Energy Technology (UMSICHT) and its partners analysed the waste generation and management as well as the 20 major landfill sites in Kuwait. The data was used to develop the Kuwait National Waste Management Strategy 2040 (KNWMS). It sets out the implementation plan for the next 20 years.

The University of Birmingham and Fraunhofer UMSICHT are renewing their partnership addressing the practical challenges of delivering green energy and renewable resources – looking to broaden their collaboration.

Refined and increasingly innovative technologies are crucial to finding solutions for reducing the use of fossil resources. The partnership between ISI Biomass (Senai Biomass Innovation Institute), located in Três Lagoas, and the Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute in Germany will expand the potential for research to transform waste into clean energy.

We would like to thank you for the good cooperation over the past year and for the trust you have placed in us.

In the »BeWiSer« project, a team from Fraunhofer UMSICHT is investigating the potential of biogenic raw and residual materials in steel production as a substitute for fossil carbon and energy sources. Dr. Robert Daschner, head of the Advanced Carbon Conversion Technologies department at UMSICHT, explains: »We want to further reduce residual emissions in a future hydrogen-based steel mill process by using biogenic waste. The project focuses on the production and use of biochar instead of fossil coal and the use of synthesis gas, in particular hydrogen and carbon monoxide.« The co-utilization of plastic-containing residual material fractions, which usually occur within the steel mill process chain, is also being considered. At the end of the project, the planning of a pilot plant for the utilization of biomass with biochar production at the Salzgitter steelworks site should be completed. The technological basis for the plant design is the thermo-catalytic reforming (TCR) process developed by Fraunhofer UMSICHT.