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ricion AG

we are ricion

Our work rests on the solid foundation of natural cycles. There is no waste in nature, for this reason it doesn’t need to hold back, it’s that effective. The abundance of blooming shows this impressively. Everything in nature moves in a permanent cycle – nothing is ever lost.

ricion has forward-looking key technologies that are modeled on nature’s perpetual circulation systems. Together with our customers and cooperation partners, we are breaking new ground with the goal of a holistic circular economy to counteract the increasing destruction of resources.

With the key technology Terra Preta and other nature-friendly processes, ricion makes a comprehensive contribution to climate protection and the regeneration of natural resources. ricion is privately organized and at the same time pursues common- good oriented goals.

Terra Preta is a highly fertile black soil from the Amazon rainforest and an impressive example of the harmonious interaction between man and nature. An indigenous advanced civilization used this nature-based method to treat and enhance municipal waste in their forest garden cities. In this way, millions of people could be well fed for thousands of years without destroying the natural resources of soil, water, climate and biodiversity. On the contrary, the soils were even permanently upgraded and regenerated.

meet joachim böttcher

It all started with Joachim. He grew up in his parents’ nursery and found joy in gardening at an early age. After classical horticultural training, he graduated as a horticultural engineer and went into business for himself with a nature-oriented gardening and landscaping company. Even then, he succeeded in combining practical implementation with the necessary scientific meticulousness – a quality that is still one of his particular strengths today. His passion for nature, his fascination for nature-based processes and his distinctive holistic approach made him a pioneer and sought-after expert in regenerative material flow management. His main topics are urban water management, soil and regenerative land use, where he succeeded in developing several significant environmental technologies. He is a founding benefactor of the non-profit foundation Lebensraum Mensch Boden Wasser Luft (Habitat Man Soil Water Air) and for many years headed the environmental consulting firm Eco-Design, which has now merged into ricion. Today Joachim is co-founder and board member of ricion AG.

meet joachim böttcher

It all started with Joachim. He grew up in his parents’ nursery and found joy in gardening at an early age. After classical horticultural training, he graduated as a horticultural engineer and went into business for himself with a nature-oriented gardening and landscaping company. Even then, he succeeded in combining practical implementation with the necessary scientific meticulousness – a quality that is still one of his particular strengths today. His passion for nature, his fascination for nature-based processes and his distinctive holistic approach made him a pioneer and sought-after expert in regenerative material flow management. His main topics are urban water management, soil and regenerative land use, where he succeeded in developing several significant environmental technologies. He is a founding benefactor of the non-profit foundation Lebensraum Mensch Boden Wasser Luft (Habitat Man Soil Water Air) and for many years headed the environmental consulting firm Eco-Design, which has now merged into ricion. Today Joachim is co-founder and board member of ricion AG.

As early as the beginning of the 1990s, Joachim developed its own process for the near-natural treatment and processing of wastewater. The cycle-oriented process consisted of a pre-treatment stage with solids composting, a high-performance biological stage based on vegetated soil filters, and a service water cycle. To date, several hundred plants have been successfully implemented in various modifications and for different applications in Germany and numerous other countries. Very recent is the participation in an INTERREG research project, where Joachim’s process was used in a specified form for the treatment of micro pollutants from the effluents of municipal wastewater treatment plants. The extremely positive results from this project confirm our basic approach that nature-based systems with their enormous self-preservation power can significantly support the regeneration of massively endangered natural resources.

The next chapter in Joachim’s story is connected with Terra Preta do Indio – an anthropogenic, extremely fertile black soil from the Amazon rainforest. Due to its partly very high age of origin of more than 7,000 years and due to its almost unprecedented fertility, “Terra Preta do Indio” is still called a “scientific phenomenon” today. Since the end of the 1970s, international scientists have been conducting research to elucidate these unusual anthropogenic soils. It has been possible to largely identify the age of origin and also the ingredients of “Terra Preta” soils, which are composed of a type of charcoal and various organic municipal waste. However, science has never succeeded in elucidating the former production method that gives “Terra Preta” these extraordinary properties. The breakthrough came in 2005 at the Hengstbacherhof, when a small group of experts led by Joachim produced substrates for the first time from charcoal and other organic materials using an anaerobic fermentation process that closely resembled the native Terra Preta from the rainforest in both appearance and properties. Joachim hypothesized that via this special fermentation process in combination with highly porous charcoal (today called plant charcoal), certain microorganisms are particularly promoted, while other microbial strains, predominantly pathogens (disease and pest organisms) are effectively suppressed. The scientific proof of this hypothesis was achieved in 2007 via the so-called genetic fingerprint method (PCR), which was carried out by an independent laboratory for soil microbiology, the ZALF e.V. in Müncheberg.

Since the successful elucidation of the manufacturing processes, Joachim has been working vigorously to transfer this promising method for the valorization of diverse biogenic residues to the present day in the sense of comprehensive climate, environmental and resource protection. The process, known as Palaterra® technology from 2009 onwards, made possible for the first time a completely new way of dealing with organic residues in conjunction with an upgrading of useful soils, a strengthening of the regional circular economy and value creation as well as an active contribution to climate protection. In 2011, the German Federal Environment Ministry described Joachim’s development as the “key innovation of the century.” Wherever solid or liquid biogenic residues accumulate, such as fermentation residues from biogas plants, harvest residues, pomace, solid manure, liquid manure, sewage sludge, etc., the Palaterra® process can provide effective treatment and refinement. Waste and residual materials are turned into high-quality products in the sense of regional material flow management. The resulting Terra Preta-like substrates are used for soil improvement, as horticultural growing media, as organic universal fertilizers and for many other applications. Soils contaminated with organic pollutants can be regenerated. In agricultural applications, the Terra Preta principle also promotes humus formation, which makes an enormous contribution to active climate protection through CO2 sequestration.

Water, soil, human settlements and land management and the resulting material flows determine large parts of today’s land use. These are precisely the topics Joachim has been dealing with for almost his entire life. Usually, the individual areas of land use are always strictly separated – each sector has its own professional training, its own authorities, its own structures and its own actors. This one-sided organizational principle usually leads to the fact that meaningful synergies up to a comprehensive recycling of the accruing material flows are simply not implemented. Instead, more and more natural resources are relentlessly tapped, consumed, degraded and ultimately disposed of as “waste” in the environment. Only an intelligent and synergetic linking of these individual areas of land use with their specific material and energy flows, using simple, nature-based processing and recycling methods, will lead to a true circular economy. Only with this fundamental insight will we humans be able to sustainably conserve natural resources and regenerate the damage already done to nature, the environment and the climate. The key technologies developed by Joachim represent a valuable part of the solution!

In the nineties, Joachim founded a planning and development office for sustainable water management, which from then on carried out project planning, design and implementation of nature-based processes and plants for wastewater treatment. In the following years, hundreds of plants for the treatment of municipal, commercial, industrial and even special wastewater were successfully implemented. In addition to practical implementation, the company always maintained a close relationship with science and research, on the basis of which numerous joint research projects were carried out. The own claim was high, because it was not only about waste water purification – it was about far possible recycling economy! Thus, the own processes were permanently developed further, so that there was always a certain technological lead on the market. At the end of 2005, Terra Preta came into play; Joachim’s attention was drawn to this mysterious soil by a friend and from then on he was electrified. It could not be that scientists from all over the world had not succeeded in researching the production method of this fertile soil for more than 20 years. For Joachim, one thing was clear; if he and his team succeeded in unraveling the problem, then this would be exactly the “missing link” to a complete circular economy that he had always been looking for. And the reconnaissance succeeded. From now on, the company concentrated on the development of technical processes and ready-to-use products from liquid and solid biogenic material flows according to the ancient principle of the former Indian advanced civilization. Quoting Joachim: “With every day that we dealt with Terra Preta, the potentials and fields of application grew. Inquiries came from universities and interested people from all over the world. Our small company was not geared to this at all.” In addition, at that time the approval of products with vegetable carbon from organic residues was extremely problematic due to the German Fertilizer Ordinance. The authorities were also completely unfamiliar with the subject of Terra Preta, so they often acted rather restrictively and delayed approval procedures. To this day, the generally used and legally approved methods for the treatment of organic residues are composting and fermentation. At the same time, composting should be viewed extremely critically in times of resource scarcity, soil degradation and climate crisis! There were practically no legal regulations for the application of plant charcoal or the fermentation process. Instead, the agricultural approval of products based on plant carbon was more or less blocked via the German Fertilizer Ordinance, which was in force until recently. It was not until the European Fertilizer Ordinance came into force in June 2022 that the course was set for a comprehensive circular economy – products with plant carbon based on organic residues may now finally be used in horticulture and agriculture, exactly as Joachim and his team had been demanding for years. The company had already succeeded in implementing a number of pioneering lighthouse projects, such as several municipal wastewater treatment plants, where the purified water is used for agricultural irrigation in the spirit of the circular economy. Also worthy of mention is the innovative fermentation residue treatment plant of the Groß-Gerau municipal utility company, or the design of a new residential and commercial area with comprehensive material flow management in Riegel am Kaiserstuhl. This has created a solid starting point for bringing these forward-looking key technologies to the world and thus contributing part of the solution to the current crises.

rollout – 2022

We needed determined people – and we needed capital. Thanks to the foresight and tireless patience of a group of dedicated people, ricion was born. ricion stands for a strong team of experienced experts and committed investors who set out together to become part of the solution. Joachim contributed his entire process and product know-how as well as his intellectual property rights in the fields of water, soil and regenerative land use.

board

Michael Tschoepke

chief executive officer

Global Leader with a proven track record of operational excellence and firm, strategic leadership. Leading, developing and mentoring individuals and helping them to become successful contributors. Seeing the big picture, with flexibility to address unforeseen obstacles.

Joachim Böttcher

chief technology officer

Has a degree in horticultural engineering and many years of experience in regenerative agriculture and land use. He’s a pioneer of regional material flow management with a focus on soil, water and sustainable land use. 

Dr. Matthias Krüger

chief operations officer

Expert on water treatment facilities with a very successful history of project engineering in several of our key segments. 

Markus Seidl

business development

Graduate in Business Administration (VWA) , independent entrepreneur & networker for 25 years. Particulary interested in new technologies.

advisory board

Markus Hoffmeister

chairman

30 years of experience in technology management and entrepreneurship. Several successful exits with both owned and invested companies. Over 20 venture capital investments on both sides of the table.

Dieter Krellmann

Dieter Krellmann

Entrepreneur and communication designer, active in several nature related projects. He was is the first Investor into Joachim’s research on Terra Preta. 

friedrich-brus

Friedrich Brus

Lawyer and notary specialising in organisational law and venture capital financed operations. Responsible for legal oversight and advisor to the board.

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