Microbial Electrosynthesis - Research project on the evaluation of usage of electric energy for future microbial production processes

Summary

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) make use of the endogenous property of some microorganisms to interact with electrodes. It can be defined as an electricity-driven or electricity-influenced microbial product synthesis. The project covers the investigation, evaluation and the extension of microbial electrosynthesis for biotechnological production.

The main aims of the project are:

• Immobilization of electroactive bacteria on different electrode materials
• Application of wild-type strains for microbial electrosynthesis
• Establishment of electrochemical methods (e.g. electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) for the detection of biofilm formation
• Development of scalable reactor systems
• Microbial electrosynthesis using molecular optimized microbial strains

Immobilization of electroactive bacteria and monitoring of the subsequent biofilm formation on electrode surfaces are one of the major challenges towards industrial application of MES. In this project, a flow cell for the simultaneous detection of electroactive biofilms with impedance spectroscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy was developed.