“Waste is not a property of a material. It is a failure of the system to find a use for it.”
Resource scarcity, population growth, and climate change demand a paradigm shift: waste must be recognized as a renewable source of carbon, nutrients, energy, water, and functional materials. We develop integrated Waste-to-Resource platforms that turn complex waste streams into valuable products while minimizing environmental impacts.
Plastic waste the world would generate by now at the OECD’s 2019 rate of 353 Mt/year — about 11 tonnes every second. Illustrative, not a live measurement; resets 00:00 UTC.
Explore the Plastic AtlasWhere do we put it?
How do we treat it?
What can be recycled?
What value can we design into it?
Where we workAs the technology evolves, so does the question. Our lab works at the fourth stage — engineering waste streams, from their chemistry to their end use, as sources of value.
Real-world waste streams are chemically heterogeneous and constantly changing. Instead of treating that complexity as a limitation, we use it to uncover new pathways for recovering energy, nutrients, chemicals, clean water, and functional carbon.
Rather than studying thermochemical, biological, and nature-based technologies separately, we explore how they can work together as circular systems that recover multiple resources from a single waste stream.
From molecular and microbial mechanisms, through pilot-scale systems, to techno-economic and life-cycle assessment — so that new technologies are not only innovative, but scalable, economically viable, and environmentally beneficial.
Our research program is organized around four interconnected questions — from reactor chemistry to materials, manufacturing, and ecosystems.
How can thermochemical processing unlock the resource potential of complex waste streams?
Turning hydrothermal processing from a waste treatment technology into a predictive platform for recovering energy, carbon, and nutrients.
Explore question I →How can waste-derived carbon be engineered into functional materials?
Treating hydrochar and biochar as engineered carbon materials whose structure and function can be designed.
Explore question II →How can interactions among heterogeneous waste components create new opportunities for circular manufacturing?
Exploiting — rather than eliminating — the complexity of mixed waste to create new manufacturing pathways.
Explore question III →How can engineered resource recovery systems be integrated with natural ecosystems?
Making sure recovered resources return safely to soils, plants, microbes, and water.
Explore question IV →
Kaffman I, Posmanik R · Waste Management, 223, 115714. (2026)
Read the paperMSc, PhD and postdoc opportunities across chemistry, engineering, materials, and microbial ecology.
Join us → Researchers & peersFour scientific questions, our platforms, and 36 peer-reviewed publications.
Research & publications → Partners & TechnionNational and international consortia, a patent, pilot-scale systems, and commercial field trials.
Projects & impact →
Congratulations to Naama Kaner on delivering her first MSc research seminar! Naama recently joined the Side2Dairy project, which aims to develop alternative food products from agricultural…
A day away from the lab, sailing on the Mediterranean. Science is a team effort, and our group is a great reminder that we’re better together than we are individually.…
Another Annual Conference on Science and the Environment has come to an end, and I would like to thank the Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (ISEES)…
We work with consortia across Israel, Europe, and the Mediterranean to take waste-to-resource technologies from the lab to the field.
A research center addressing global challenges in food security, sustainability, and human health, converting agricultural waste streams into milk alternatives.
Modeling and technological tools to prevent surface and groundwater bodies from agricultural non-point source pollution under Mediterranean conditions.
The black soldier fly offers a unique opportunity to address the climate challenge and the emerging food security crisis.
The first academic hub in the world dedicated to state-of-the-art multidisciplinary research and development of sustainable protein alternatives.
Interested in collaborating, visiting, or joining the lab as a student or postdoc? We’d love to hear from you.
