Leibniz Universität Hannover welcomes a new institute – the Institute of Plastics and Circular Economy (IKK) officially inaugurated on 1 September 2019. Managed by Professor Dr.-Ing. Hans-Josef Endres, about 20 scientists and PhD students will deal in the initial phase with plastics processing, circular economy and recycling, sustainability assessment, bioplastics and degradation processes of plastics in the ocean or in the human body.
Hans-Josef Endres has been dealing with plastics as one sustainable material of the future for decades. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and wrote his doctoral thesis on biologically composable and degradable materials based on polysaccharides. In 1999, after eight years working in industry, Endres took over a professorship at Hochschule Hannover (University of Applied Sciences and Arts), where he founded the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (IfBB) in 2011. In addition, he also established a Fraunhofer Application Centre.
