Current projects

Biomass and bioenergy production in organic agriculture – consequences for soil fertility, environment, spread of animal parasites and socio-economy.

The project “Biomass and bioenergy production in organic agriculture – consequences for soil fertility, environment, spread of animal parasites and socio-economy” (BioConcens) aims at analyzing and suggesting solutions to the apparent opposing aims of bioenergy production and safeguarding soil fertility in organic agriculture.

Exploitation of natural plant biodiversity for the pesticide-free production of food. Risø focus is on organic plant breeding and potentials for marker assisted selection.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate an integrated biorefinery concept with co-production of energy, protein feed, and fertilizer products. Whole crop sugar beets (beet and top) are forming the primary feedstock supplemented with other wet green biomasses (grass, green rye, ect.) harvested continuously over the growing season to ensure maintenance of an energy production throughout the year. Main focus will be to develop a sustainable technology in which utilisation of all components of the biomass are maximized.

Lipids are found in all living cells. Polar lipids (mainly phospholipids) are an integral part of all cellular membranes, while storage lipids are present in the form of triacyl glycerols. Triacyl glycerols are found in lipid bodies in the cytosol of cells. Lipid bodies are composed of a core of triacylglycerols surrounded by a thinner layer of esterified sterols and an outer shell of hydrophobic short length proteins. The role of lipid bodies and the involvement of other cellular organelles in storage lipid accumulation is rather poorly defined and will be elucidated.

The PhD project investigates hemicellulose utilisation possibilities of agricultural waste products, with respect to their eventual utilization in polymer films. The targets for these films would be practical applications in areas such as packaging or coatings. The project focuses on a better understanding of these by-products in terms of their chemistry and availability from various plant resources in the context of film applications.

The project hypothesis is that elucidating the potential of recently developed knowledge-based technologies on the exploitation of genetic diversity, the production in crop mixtures, the improvement of seed quality by utilising new integrated methods in seed technology will improve the supply of high quality organic seed for organic farming to remain independent and viable.

Ph.d. project evaluating the advantages of mixed cultivation of several varieties of a single crop for sustainable agricultural production using meta-analyses techniques.

“The Research project on Microbial fuel cell – used in direct conversion of lignocellulosic waste to energy” (MFC project) is a national research project bringing together 3 research groups to study bacterial production of electricity from waste streams.

The purpose of this EU project is to produce fibres for composite materials.

The detoxifying ability of yeast allows simultaneous detoxification and fermentation during ethanol production. However, the inhibitor conversion rate by normal baker’s yeast is usually low, in particular considering high inhibitor concentration.

Hemicellulose, which constitutes 20- 30 wt% of lignocellulosic dry weight, is an abundant carbon resource for ethanol production. Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum, a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium, has been reported to be able to ferment hemicellulose and xylan polymers directly as well as monosaccharides (both C5 and C6).

A high content of lipid in the micro-algae cells can be obtained by selection of the right organism, genetic modification and by applying environmental stress during cultivation. However, economical production of lipid requires an efficient and cost-effective cultivation of the algae.

A few species of microalgae are being large-scale cultivated for production of healthcare products and pigments. Earth houses a huge number of different algae species, but only a limited number of these have been investigated for their ability to produce lipids for production of biodiesel. Lipids may comprise up to 70% of total dry weight in some micro algae species, but this high potential cannot be economically utilized if biomass production is slow or low. Thus, biomass production is a limiting factor and has to be optimized.

The “Energy production from marine biomass” – is a multidisciplinary national Danish research initiative bringing together 4 research groups to develop a method for producing liquid, gaseous and solid biofuel from the marine algae Ulva lactuca.

In this project new process configurations for anaerobic treatment of sludge is being developed with the aim of improving hydrolysis and methane production.

SOLIBAM will develop specific and novel breeding approaches integrated with management practices to improve the performance, quality, sustainability and stability of crops adapted to organic and low-input systems, in their diversity in Europe and taking into account small-scale farms in Africa.

This project addresses growth depressions caused by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in important crops. The problem is frequently observed in cereals and other grasses in mesocosms and may well result in ‘hidden’ yield losses in the field. Objectives are to test a novel phosphorus limitation hypothesis to reveal mechanisms behind such growth depressions and to investigate methods to mitigate this assumed loss-of-efficiency in P uptake.

Innovative advanced woodbased composite materials and components (WOODY)