The team of three students, Amira Oraby, Fredy-Wsbaldo Baron-Nunez and Thomas Galonska from the Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart, led by mentor Dr. Susanne Zibek, has developed the fermentative production of two biosurfactants from renewable raw materials that are not yet available on the European market. Their company EBS - Engineering Biosurfactants will be founded next year and will offer surfactants that can be tailored to customer requirements. This idea convinced the jury of experienced investors and venture capitalists in the G-BiB final on 04 September and the team won the G-BiB Award. Surfactants are part in many products of everyday life, according to a Ceresana market study, with worldwide sales in 2016 of 31 billion US dollars.
EBS prevailed against the teams LignoPure from Hamburg and Innovived from Leuven.
LignoPure extracts lignin from biomass under chemicalfree conditions and thus produces a high-quality and multifunctional bio-polymer with many possible applications.
Innovived has developed the production of a sustainable 3D print filament from cigarette filter waste and thus contributes to the reduction of plastic waste in nature.
The final award - consisting of a sparring day at High-Tech Gruenderfonds, one of Germany's leading pre-seed investors, and 7,500 euros in prize money sponsored by Henkel - is intended to help the young team pursue their idea further.
