Under the direction of Gustav Nyström, researchers at Empa’s Cellulose and Wood Materials department are searching for methods to make money off of spent grain. They have created a method to turn brewery waste into high-grade nanocellulose, a flexible biodegradable raw material that may be used to make fiber-reinforced polymers or packaging materials, among other things.

In the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, the researchers’ findings were published under the title “Thermally Insulating Cellulose Nanofiber Aerogels from Brewery Residues.”