Year: 2024

We recently started our new M-ERA.NET Pproject “LivMat: Productive catalytic living materials: combining 3D biobased fibrillar membranes with synthetic microbial consortia to produce chemicals” together with our partners from Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Solaga GmbH, Istanbul Technical University, Kaunas University of Technology and University of Latvia.

The LivMat project aims to syndicate biobased porous materials with microbial consortia to effectively capture natural and waste resources to synthesize chemicals continuously, demonstrating the basis for catalytic living materials. Within the project we will exemplify the approach by the production of monomers for textile polymer synthesis including ε-caprolactone and adipic acid.

We at b-ACT^matter had a lot of fun and great discussions at the Saxon Innovation Conference 2024 on 19 June 2024!

In the workshop “From research to product – how does it work?” we got suggestions on how to use design thinking to further develop our research results in an application-oriented and user-centered way. We got creative (see picture Rohan Karande ). Thanks to Jannis Bulla , Milina Rochelle Alber and Lydia Woiterski.

Ronny Frank reports on the ESTER Biotech team’s validation grant results at the conference.

Congratulations to the winners of the Saxon Founder Award

• 1st place: enaDyne
• 2nd place: next3D
• 3rd place: Primogene

Vocatium is a career fair for pupils and students and took place in Dresden on May 28, 2024. The fair is a platform for training and studying that offers career guidance for pupils and parents every year.
In addition to the opportunity to talk to trainers on site, pupils and students can also gain insights into the various professional fields through presentations by exhibitors.

Selina Hanisch explained “How a slimy bacterial flat share is helping to shape our energy transition” in a Science Slam at the Vocatium and won 2nd place!

Congratulations!

On May 14, 2024, a report for the ARD program was filmed at b-ACTmatter and the Faculty of Chemistry. The report was broadcast this Monday on ARD Mittagsmagazin.
In the programme, Dr. Christian Sonnendecker and Dr. Ronny Frank from the start-up team ESTER Biotech explain how they are planning the up-scaling of PET recycling with enzymes from laboratory scale to industrial application. The result is PET monomers that can be reused for production without fossil fuels.

Millions of tons of plastic waste are generated in Germany every year. Only 35 percent of the plastic waste collected is recycled and less than one percent is returned to raw materials or chemicals. The majority of plastic waste is used to generate energy, i.e. incinerated. During the incineration process, the climate-damaging carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere as exhaust gas.

Two years ago, Dr. Christian Sonnendecker from the Institute of Analytical Chemistry and the b-ACTmatter transfer center at Leipzig’s Südfriedhof cemetery discovered an enzyme that can be used to break down polyethylene terephthalate, or PET for short, into its basic chemical components in record time and process it for the manufacture of new PET products. The process enables 100% and infinitely repeatable recycling, which could replace previous processes that only allow a few PET reuse cycles and enable efficient recycling. Since then, the enzyme has been continuously developed and optimized with the support of scientists from the Chair of Structural Analysis and the Chair of Biochemical Cell Technology at the BBZ.

In the article, Dr. Sonnendecker presents a prototype recycling technology in the laboratories of the BBZ and b-ACTmatter that makes it possible to break down PET products into their individual components twice as quickly as two years ago.

Together with Dr. Ronny Frank from the Chair of Biochemical Cell Technology at the BBZ, the biochemist is now working on a reactor that is 50 times larger and can decompose up to 20 kilograms of PET in twelve hours. In order to utilize the process industrially, the two scientists would like to transfer the technology into a start-up with the spin-off project ESTER Biotech.

To the article in the ARD media library

Valentina Schmitz, PhD student in the BIOMAT junior research group at the b-ACTmatter research and transfer center, presented the M-ERA-NET project REPLACER at the D-A-CH Algae Summit 2024 in Bern on May 7-8.

Current developments in the algae industry and research were discussed at the event. The first “D-A-CH Algae Summit” took place in Vienna in 2021. The event showcases current developments in the algae industry and research and aims to promote networking and the exchange of experience between industry, science and administration in the DACH countries.

Valentina Schmitz presented the Biomat group’s research, in which hybrid living materials are developed using phototrophic biofilms of different species to produce sustainable products.

On April 19, 2024, b-ACT Matter presented itself at the Böhlener Kulturhaus together with other funded projects of the federal program STARK of the BMWK.

The program supports various projects with the aim of strengthening innovative transformation processes in the former lignite mining regions. With the help of the program’s structural aid, the coal regions are to be given a chance to be better off after the coal phase-out than before. Knowledge and technology transfer projects such as the b-ACT matter research and transfer center for bioactive matter are part of the future-oriented initiatives for structural change in the region.

After the opening of the event by the Saxon State Minister for Regional Development Thomas Schmidt, b-ACT matter presented the aufbauACT project to establish an interfaculty center for bioactive matter at the University of Leipzig in the first lecture block. The transfer center project is developing innovative, adaptive, regenerable biohybrid materials with “intelligent” optical, electrical and mechanical properties. Technologies for “living hybrid materials” and new biofilm bioreactors for the microbial production of hydrogen, bio-nylon and feed proteins using greenhouse gases are currently being researched and prepared for transfer with industrial partners.
The mission of b-ACTmatter is to promote the transfer of technology from research to industry with the aim of contributing to regional development and solving the major social challenges of structural change in the region and global climate change.

The event then offered the opportunity to get to know other STARK program projects, to exchange ideas and to initiate synergies for further joint initiatives.

Prof. Tilo Pompe presents the aufbauACT project of the STARK program in Böhlen. Photo: André Wirsig