The 18th Kölner Design Preis was presented on 21 November 2024. The Cologne Design Prize, which is endowed with a total of 38,000 euros, honours graduates from five Cologne universities every year. This year, the first prize went to Theresa Tropschuh, who completed her Master's degree at KISD in 2024.
Germany has been failing to meet the EU’s environmental targets for years, in particular due to nitrate levels in water bodies being exceeded. In regions with intensive livestock farming, agricultural wastewater, such as cow urine and silage leachate, leads to increased nutrient inputs. This wastewater is often collected with faeces and spread on fields as liquid manure, although there are often already sufficient nutrients in the soil. Excess nitrate and phosphorus are therefore washed out and end up in rivers and groundwater. But what to do with the excess wastewater? The concept for a photobioreactor that converts nutrients into biomass with the help of microalgae and bacteria was developed in the master’s thesis ‘Kühe machen Mühe’. Microalgae are ideal for this task because they grow very quickly and are able to absorb inorganic nutrients in a short time. They also convert CO2 into oxygen, which means that emissions from agricultural practice can be reduced in the future.
Supervised by Prof. Miriam Santor
