Research

Project objective: To develop the residual material from insect farming into a high-quality fertiliser with an integrated microbial system. In the next few years, the production of insects is expected to increase dramatically due to the growing demand for alternative protein sources. The advantage of insects is that they take up little space in the breeding process compared to other farm animals and cause far fewer climate-damaging emissions. Considering the zero-waste context and the need to contribute to the circular economy, it is necessary to recycle all components of insects, including their by-products. One by-product generated from insect breeding is the frass, which consists of the unreacted food source and the faeces produced by mealworms. This has a high potential to partially or completely replace conventional NPK fertilisers due to its rapid mineralisation and high content of readily available nutrients. Benefits for the company Threepoint GmbH: On the one hand, this alternative way of upgrading the insects' residues improves the value cycle of mealworm breeding and represents a possibility to provide a sustainable fertiliser in the near future, which not only serves as a nutrient supply, but also increases the diversity in the soil.

Within the framework of this project, insect components are examined with regard to their chitin and chitosan content. The skins consist mainly of chitin, which is currently separated with the contained wheat bran (food for mealworms) after production and offered as fertiliser in agriculture. While on the one hand an agricultural application of this product is to be assessed as positive in terms of the circular louse economy, this waste product of mealworm breeding could represent a possibility to obtain chitosan from it.

The processing of fruit, such as apples or citrus fruits, as well as the production of beet sugar generate residual materials containing pectin. The experimental work will investigate how these residues can be used as a substrate for the production of bioplastics. For this purpose, the pectinous substances are made available by enzymatic pre-treatment. A fermentation process with bacterial production strains converts the substrates to polyhydroxyalkanoates, which can be used as biobased and biodegradable plastics.