Bahar Yıldız Kutman gave an invited talk at a symposium at Koç University

The research symposium “Biomass Valorisation, Bio-Based Materials & Climate-Resilient Agriculture”, organized jointly by Koç University and the University of Nottingham and supported by the British Council’s International Research Empowerment Programme, was held at Koç University on 5 November 2026. Our supervisor Bahar Yıldız Kutman took part as an invited speaker and gave a talk titled “From Waste to Substrate” on the biochar research in our lab.

The talk presented new biochar-perlite mixtures made by gasifying the vegetative biomass of tomato plants and developed to replace cocopeat, a common growing medium in soilless agriculture. This work is the PhD thesis topic of our doctoral student Ömer Faruk Taştan: “From Waste to Substrate: Replacing Cocopeat in Soilless Agriculture With Novel Biochar-Perlite Mixtures Obtained by Gasification of Vegetative Tomato Biomass”.

Source: GTÜ Institute of Biotechnology