Professur Nachhaltiges Bauen / Sustainable Construction

By combining wood and agricultural waste with mycelium as a natural binder, a sustainable material is created without the need for fresh wood or synthetic adhesives. This material offers density and stability comparable to OSB, MDF, and particle boards. It is suitable for furniture construction, drywall systems, and as a substitute for synthetic insulation materials.

A 1:1 demonstrator at KIT showcases NEWood as an interior wall system and furniture component. The circular room system serves as a quiet meeting space where students and staff can test the material. The goal is to achieve market readiness within two to four years.

Find out more about the project here or in the blog post below.

Research Project NEWood – Sustainable material innovation for the construction and furniture industry

Project representatives of all projects funded under the ‘Circular Construction – Climate Protection through Recycling Management’ programme © Baden-Württemberg Stiftung gGmbH

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), under the direction of Prof. Rebekka Volk (IIP), is working in close collaboration with the project leader Dr. Nazanin Saeidi from the research department of the Professorship of Sustainable Construction (IEB) to develop the innovative material ‘NEWood’, a 100% bio-based and circular material alternative with great potential for the construction and furniture industries. This material is produced exclusively from wood processing residues, agricultural waste and mushroom mycelium – completely without fossil raw materials. In the process, biogenic carbon is permanently bound, making an important contribution to climate protection.

The construction and operation of buildings and the creation of infrastructure are responsible for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, cities consume over 75% of the world’s resources and generate about half of the global waste. In this context, alternative and sustainable materials such as NEWood are becoming increasingly important in order to significantly reduce the emissions of material-intensive industries and promote the circular economy.

The project aims to develop 1:1 demonstrators that illustrate the versatility of NEWood for interior wall systems and furniture components. These demonstrators will be designed to meet the legal standards of the construction and furniture industries in order to enable the material to be launched on the market. In addition, the project includes a life cycle analysis, a cost analysis and a feasibility study for industrialisation. The results will be presented at trade fairs, at the KIT Department of Architecture and in the central library of the KIT in order to make the application possibilities and the potential of NEWood visible to the public.

The project is funded by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung gGmbH and will run from July 2024 to June 2026. In addition to the KIT, partners such as König + Neurath AG and Fiber Engineering are involved in the development.

NEWood combines innovation and sustainability. With its ability to permanently bind biogenic carbon and replace fossil materials, this material can revolutionise the circular economy in the construction and furniture industries. At the same time, it makes a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the climate.

Nazanin Saeidi in an interview with Maike Rubel and Patricia Leuchtenberger about the innovative manufacturing process and the advantages of NEWood as a recyclable alternative to wooden composite materials.

The Environmental Foundation of Sparkasse Pforzheim Calw honors four projects with the Umweltpreis 2023. The presentation of the prizes, worth a total of 15,000 euros, took place on March 15, 2023 at the Sparkasse in Calw. The main prize of 7,500 euros was awarded to the team from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) for the „NEWood“ project.

The NEWood project is about developing new bio-based, sustainable and renewable materials that can replace conventional wood products, such as particleboard. Most of the currently available wood-based products do not meet the principles of the circular economy. KIT researchers now aim to develop materials that can replace unsustainable wood products in the construction industry. Time is pressing, as forests are threatened by deforestation due to strong demand. In addition, the production of synthetic binders, which require wood products, results in CO2 emissions that accelerate climate change. From an ecological point of view, the pressure on forests should be reduced and industrial greenhouse gas emissions reduced.

The „NEWood“ material developed by the KIT team belongs to a new class of biobased, resource-efficient and CO2-negative materials. It is produced exclusively from regionally available organic waste, including agricultural residues. As a sustainable and renewable material, NEWood thus offers an excellent alternative to freshly cut wood. It also has comparable properties to materials made primarily from wood fiber and glue. These include particleboard, medium-density fiberboard or multilayer board. Synthetic binders are not required for NEWood, as the new KIT material is manufactured using fungal mycelium as a natural binder. Mycelium, which is responsible for vegetative growth in fungi, provides a novel, ecologically valuable binding method for wood products. The Karlsruhe researchers are already in contact with industry. They are aiming to found a start-up that will enable the scientific findings on NEWood to be translated into industrial products.

Other award winners were:
Lukas Dufner, research associate at the University of Stuttgart, for the project „Photocatalytic drinking water treatment with sunlight“, which can be used to purify contaminated drinking water in developing countries and regions with poor infrastructure.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klemens Gintner of the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA) for the first measurement of breeding parameters, which are important for the breeding of endangered birds.
The municipality of Neuhausen (Enzkreis) for setting up a „WaldKlimaPfad“ (ForestClimatePath), which provides information about the consequences of global warming at play and information sites.

Text: Stiftung Umweltpreis

165 projects from 54 universities took part in this year’s competitionline CAMPUS Award. The spectrum of topics ranged from utopias for urban development and material studies to adaptive architecture and after-use strategies. The proportion of projects dealing with sustainable design tasks such as the conversion of existing buildings, climate adaptation in cities or research into alternative materials was particularly high.

In addition to two student award-winning projects, which went to the TU Munich and Leibniz Universität Hannover, and two award-winning final theses from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the University of Stuttgart, one faculty project also received an award.

From nine projects submitted, the jury selected the work „NEWood, a 100% bio-based, sustainable and recyclable material alternative to wood-based products“ as the winner. The research by the Institute of Design and Construction Technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology resulted in the „development of a new class of bio-based, resource-efficient and CO2-negative materials.“ As an alternative to particleboard, MDF and OSB, the boards are made exclusively from wood and agricultural waste. Mushroom mycelium is used as a natural binder, so no synthetic binders are required.

The research project shows that NEWood has comparable properties to wood-based materials such as MDF, OSB and particleboard. The use of mycelium, the structural part of fungi, is a novel bonding method that enables the production of a 100% bio-based and fully recyclable alternative to wood-based materials. The project team, consisting of Dr. Alireza Javadian, Dr. Nazanin Saeidi and Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, is convinced that „NEWood“ will be a sustainable alternative to conventional MDF and particleboard and has the potential to initiate a paradigm shift in the way we produce our future building materials in terms of the circular economy without leaving any waste behind.

More information here.

The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) announced the winners of this year’s Sustainability Challenge at the DGNB Sustainability Day in Fellbach on 8 July. In the category „Research“, the project „NEWood“ lead by Nazanin Saeidi and Alireza Javadian from the Professorship of Sustainable Construction Dirk E. Hebel at KIT in Karlsruhe, came out on top.

Among the start-ups, the jury chose mygreentop. The „Innovation“ category was won by Home Power Solutions with picea. The audience award went to the research project „Kalkspeicher“ from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). A total of more than 100 projects and companies entered the DGNB Sustainability Challenge this year.

The selection of the award winners in the DGNB Sustainability Challenge was different this year than in the past. In addition to the finalists, the eleven-member jury also directly determined the winners in the categories „Innovation“, „Start-up“ and „Research“.

„The decision was enormously difficult for us as a jury,“ says Dr. Christine Lemaitre, Executive Director of the DGNB and part of the selection committee. „All the finalists presented themselves excellently, which is why I can only congratulate them all. They are the best proof that there are smart, forward-thinking people in our industry who can combine sustainability with innovation.“

The „NEWood“ project is a novel class of bio-based, resource-efficient and CO2-negative materials based on mycelium. Since NEWood shows comparable properties to MDF and chipboard, it serves as a substitute for wood and wood-based materials. The wood alternative is developed exclusively from available organic waste, including wood and agricultural waste, and is manufactured using fungal mycelium as a natural binder.

This year, the jury was made up of Dr Anna Braune (DGNB), Gerhard Breitschaft (Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik), Dominik Campanella (Concular), Prof. Moritz Fleischmann (Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences), Prof. Andrea Klinge (ZRS Architekten), Dr Christine Lemaitre (DGNB), Martin Prösler (Proesler Kommunikation), Martin Rodeck (EDGE Technologies), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ing. Anja Rosen (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Patrick Teuffel (Eindhoven University of Technology), and Prof. Meike Weber (Hildesheim University of Applied Sciences and Arts).

More information on all award winners and finalists is available online in the DGNB press release or on the DGNB blog. (Text © DGNB)