16 October 2023 – Azza Silotry Naik (Lecturer, Food Science and Environmental Health, TU Dublin) presented her research work titled Valorisation of Brewers’ spent grains for food and feed applications at the FULLRECO4US conference held on 13-15 September 2023 in Istanbul (Turkey).
The study was conducted as part of the Erasmus+ project NEMOS- A new educational approach for the acquisition of sustainability competences through service learning, co-financed by the European Commission and in which the Technological University of Dublin is a consortium partner. Carried out by final year project students at TU Dublin, as well as Erasmus+ exchange student from France, the research allowed them to acquire sustainability competencies through the project.
The work entailed utilisation of enzymes and microbes for bioprocessing of brewers’ spent grain, a by-product of brewing industry. A research of high relevance in our pursuits towards net 0 emissions, as 39 million tons of BSG/year are produced globally of which 3.4 million are generated in Europe. Thanks to its results, that showed enhancement of protein content as well as enhanced antioxidant activity after the treatment, the work opens door for future applications in food and feed sector of the high-value ingredient derived from high-volume by-products that Europe discards.
The conference was organised by FULLRECO4US Cost Action 20133, a discussion platform for collaborations centred on holistic approaches to waste recycling and valorisation, and on the development of new cross-border interdisciplinary and intersectoral networks. The conference had over 100 participants from all across Europe. Azza’s presentation garnered interest and had several participants from countries such as Greece, UK, Poland and Bulgaria extending invites for future collaborations.
About the NEMOS Project
The NEMOS project acknowledges sustainability as an increasingly crucial skill for graduate and post-graduate students to tackle important global challenges such as climate change, food waste and the loss of biodiversity in their professional future. Therefore, the project aims to define a new educational model to integrate sustainability competences in the curricula of food-related degrees by means of service learning.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, the NEMOS project is led by the Public University of Navarra and includes the following consortium partners: Technological University Dublin (Ireland); Technological University Graz (Austria); Rhône-Alpes Higher Institute of Agriculture (France); University of Pisa (Italy); and IGCAT.
More information at www.nemosproject.com
