14.02.2024

Volkswagen Foundation funds project to convert waste into new biomaterials

The Volkswagen Foundation is funding a project at the University of Tübingen to convert harmful waste materials into useful biomaterials with a total of 1.34 million euros over a period of four years. The funding was obtained by Dr. Bastian Molitor, Professor Lars Angenent (both working group leaders of Environmental Biotechnology in the Department of Geosciences) and Professor Forchhammer (working group leader at the Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine). 

"Biotechnological approaches can help significantly in overcoming our problems in connection with the climate crisis," said University President, Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. (Doshisha) Karla Pollmann: "In Tübingen, researchers are working across the disciplines on the pressing issues of our time. Biomaterials, which are produced by converting climate-harming gases and waste materials, bring us closer to an urgently needed circular economy. Against this background, I am very pleased about the Volkswagen Foundation's renewed, generous commitment to our University."

The research is conducted at the interdisciplinary interface between microbiology and biotechnology. Research in the working groups of Bastian Molitor and Lars Angenent focuses on the conversion of organic waste materials and industrial waste gases into useful products with the help of microorganisms. Karl Forchhammer's research group investigates the metabolism of cyanobacteria, among other things. He has already succeeded in stimulating cyanobacteria to produce bioplastics. Microorganisms are to be harnessed for biotechnological applications and interactions within microbial communities examined at a molecular level. 

In its "Circularity with recycled and biogenic raw materials" funding line, the Volkswagen Foundation supports projects that address original and practical research questions on closing raw material-product cycles. Funding topics include bio-inspired material design as well as microbial and molecular material conversion and value creation from complex waste streams. The project funded here focuses on the biopolymer cyanophycin, a substance naturally produced by cyanobacteria. In the Forchhammer working group, a process was developed to convert this polymer into a polycationic derivative by esterification. This is a new biomolecule substance class that promises a wide range of possible applications, e.g. as a coating material, cell adhesive, nucleic acid carrier, absorption material and much more. The Forchhammer working group will therefore research the medical, pharmaceutical and industrial applications of cyanophycin esters.

Cyanophycin is currently produced photosynthetically by cyanobacteria in a light-dependent process. In the Molitor/Angenent part of the project, this process is to be transferred from cyanobacteria to acetogenic bacteria in order to find a new production pathway for cyanophycin using hydrogen and carbon dioxide. "Acetogenic bacteria are promising bioproducers that can already be used to produce a wide variety of platform chemicals. The functionalization of cyanophycin enables exciting approaches to researching relevant material properties," says Bastian Molitor. This means that waste streams from industry (H2+CO2 or synthesis gas) could be used to produce useful biomaterials in a circular economy. 

Leon Kokkoliadis