About the Search Question
Van Blankensteyn started their search on the campus by asking a very simple question: “How do we keep the campus clean with local resources?” They went to a variety of experts, from biologists, chemist, physicians, and cleaning ladies, kitchen staff and gardeners. Their approach creates commonality of purpose how various specialisms can work together to answer this simple question. Looking at local food waste on campus they discovered an abundance of orange peel waste. An orange peel is garbage in the food processing industry, but could be a valuable resource for making soap. For the Department of Search, Marsille and Prinsen set up a cleaning production unit using the waste stream of orange peels. By observing nature the orange in its original habitat, they started to study the biotope around the orange tree. How do tree roots collaborate with the soil, bacteria, oranges and weather circumstances? By combining observations from looking at the tree and knowledge from chemistry, biology and engineering they started a fermentation lab searching for the perfect balance in extracting the useful resources for cleaning products. Van Blankensteyn introduces natural fermentation processes to transform orange peels into cleaning products. Their approach is a radical new way of thinking about waste, hygiene and the perception of cleaning.
www.vanblankensteyn.org
Collaboration Partners
Utrecht University
Assisting in Biochemistry & Microbiology expertise
Program Bio-inspired Innovation
Botanical Garden
Antibacterial research project by honors students
Department of Biology
Professor dr. H. Wösten , Microbology
dr. H. de Cock, Microbiology
dr. J. Appelman, Program manager Bio-inspired Innovation
HU-University of Applied Sciences Utrecht
Assisting in Product development
Institute for Life Sciences & Chemistry (ILC) +
Research group Innovative Testing in Life Sciences & Chemistry (INT)
2nd year students projectteam Biokatalyse & Polymerisatie
3rd year InternshipChemical Technology students
Utrecht Science Park
University Utrecht, Facility Service Centre
Sodexo, Orange Peel Waste supplier
Asito, Cleaning Agent application