Over the past 20 years, HSN has made a name for itself in research and teaching in the field of materials recycling and the circular economy. From the very beginning, it has offered the degree programmes Technical Remediation and later Land and Materials Recycling and the current degree programmes Geotechnics, Environmental and recycling technology, Environmental and recycling technology practice PLUS and Environmental and Recycling Technology The University of Applied Sciences has recognised the growing role of the associated technologies and has established a qualified degree programme in the field of environmental and recycling technology. This is designed to provide students with basic process engineering training in the development, planning and operation of environmental and recycling technology plants. The degree programme also includes the topics of environmental protection, the extraction of secondary raw materials and the generation of energy from waste - for example from biowaste. The HSN attaches great importance to application-orientated, interdisciplinary and networked research with technology transfer.

In addition to the further development and optimisation of recycling technologies, an important focus of work is the interdisciplinary and overall societal view. Numerous interdisciplinary issues from the fields of information technology, measurement and control technology, automation technology and design need to be addressed. The question of how citizens in Germany can be integrated into the recycling transition process through further training measures will also be an important task for resource research in the coming years.

The Institute for Applied Building Research Weimar gGmbH (IAB) was created on 1 January 2012 from the merger of two Weimar-based business-related research institutions - the Institut für Fertigteiltechnik Weimar gGmbH and the Forschungsinstitut für Tief- und Rohleitungsbau gGmbH. Today, the IAB employs 118 people from various disciplines. IAB Weimar gGmbH is equipped to provide all services from raw material analysis, material development and material testing to recycling. In the field of materials development and testing, the spectrum includes concrete (special concrete, fibre concrete, high-performance concrete, polymer concrete, wood concrete), mortar, plaster, tile adhesive, screed, floor mortar, backfill building materials, sand-lime brick, aerated concrete, gypsum, ceramics, calcined clays, loam, lightweight granulates, new materials from secondary raw materials (building rubble, ash, sewage sludge, slag).

IAB recycling technology centre - a building block for the ThIWert

Last year, the new recycling technology centre was inaugurated at the IAB. It was funded by the Free State of Thuringia and co-financed by the European Union as part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). For the first time, the technical centre offers the opportunity to pursue the development of innovative recycling products and the use of construction waste as raw materials beyond the laboratory scale and to prepare for the transfer into practice. The centrepiece of the plant is a gas-fired pilot rotary kiln with a length of 6.0 m, diameter 0.6 m, maximum temperature 1600 °C, standard temperature 1250 °C. Further equipment includes a jaw crusher, sieving system, mill, pelletising disc, powdering system, etc.

Experience in recent years has shown that a rapid transfer of new recycling processes into practice often fails due to the lack of a multivalent reference plant. The construction of the IAB pilot plant has closed a gap in the process flow from application research to technical introduction. The new competence centre for resource efficiency covers all process steps such as crushing the construction waste, grinding, granulating and firing in the rotary kiln and is available to industrial partners for joint research activities and testing purposes.

The pictures below show views of individual IAB test sites.

Contact person:

Dr Barbara Leydolph
Phone: +49 3643 8684-145
E-Mail: 

The Bauhaus Institute for Future-Oriented Infrastructure Systems (b.is) pursues, among other things, the goal of sustainable and cross-media organisation of material and energy flows. This is based on the current and future challenges of public services, which must adapt to constantly changing framework conditions. A symbiotic, more efficient and cooperative use of the respective infrastructures harbours completely new options for water and organic management, which are then largely raw material-recovering, more adaptable and, above all, cycle-oriented. In addition to general expertise in the areas of resource and urban water management, expertise in newer concepts and systems has been built up. The core interest is the utilisation of the resources and energy tied up in organic waste streams and the corresponding practical issues, which are approached at both a theoretical and practical level. Aspects of the transition to new infrastructure systems, concept and method development as well as technical realisation including prototype development are interlinked in order to build up strategic knowledge for action.

The b.is laboratories and pilot plants at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar are equipped to carry out traditional waste and urban water management analyses, such as COD, BOD, TOC and Kjeldahl nitrogen determinations in wastewater and sludge treatment or determining the degree of decomposition in biological waste treatment. This includes the necessary digestion and treatment processes. As the focus is now on mapping the entire value chain, the technology has been adapted and expanded to include bioreactors (anaerobic, continuous and batch), aquatic systems (macroalgae and hydrophytes), climate chambers for simulating various environmental conditions, test rigs for grey water treatment (membranes, trickling filters) and electrocoagulation as well as analytical equipment for material characterisation and process assessment (ion chromatography, elemental analysis, AOX and, in development, GC-MS and PCR).

This direction is to be further expanded in the course of the ThIWert, for example to include in-depth microbiological considerations of the consortia involved in the processes.

The following Main research areas are processed as part of the ThIWert programme:

• Transition of water infrastructure in general
• Material flow separation in existing buildings and establishment of new sanitary systems (NASS)
• Recyclable material recovery from urine
• Cascade utilisation of residual materials in the sense of coupling waste and wastewater treatment
• Optimisation of biochemical conversion against the background of fermentation residue utilisation
• Elimination of trace substances in organic material flows
• Behaviour of biodegradable plastics in the material flows

Contact person:

Dr Thomas Haupt
Phone: +49 3643 / 58 4650
E-Mail: thomas.haupt[at]uni-weimar.de