Copper is an important bulk metal for the German industry: it is mainly used in the cable and electrical industry, but also in the construction and automotive sectors, and in mechanical engineering. Until now most of it had to be imported either in the form of metal concentrates or crude ore. The world market leader Chile has been an important copper partner for Germany.
The common mussel has more to offer than pearls and tough threads with which it clings to the seafloor. Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm have gained first insights into the extraordinary process how mussel attachment fibres, known as byssus threads, are generated in the mollusc foot.
With a 2% share of the 300 billion tonnes plastics market and a turnover of €13bn compared to €11bn in 2015, the bioplastics market, however, still remains a niche market. Nova forecasts production to increase from the current volume to 8.5 million tonnes by 2021.
They are found in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, cleaning agents, on seeds and even in fire extinguishers: surfactants. These substances reduce the surface tension of a liquid or the interfacial tension between two liquid phases. Surfactants can be used to mix generally immiscible liquids together or separate them from each other in a controlled manner.
In mid-December, Biotensidon GmbH, a Karlsruhe-based subsidiary of the Swiss firm Biotensidon International AG, announced a breakthrough in the mass production of rhamnolipid surfactants.
These ‘designer organelles’ are hoped to lay the groundwork for a universal production organism. The project has won the 43-year-old the Next Generation of Biotechnological Procedures award from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The millions-strong endowment will fund Schiller’s six-person team over the coming five years. Today, he is setting up his own real-sized reaction chambers at the Center for Biological Systems Analysis (ZBSA) of the University of Freiburg.
They have created a bio-supercapacitor: in the scientific journal "Angewandte Chemie", scientists from the Ruhr University in Bochum and Sweden's Malmö University have described a biofuel cell that not only generates energy, but can also store it. "That kind of technology may be suitable for miniaturised devices, for example, those meant to supply themselves with energy wirelessly.
This acquisition is the biggest of its kind by a German firm. Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto for 66 billion US dollars is now set to go ahead. The regulators have yet to approve the deal, however. According to the German chemical corporation, it is willing to pay 128 dollars per share, valuing Monsanto at 66 billion dollars. That works out at about 58.8 billion euros. Data from financial news agency Bloomberg indicate that this is the second-largest cash acquisition in world history.
The hidden part of the plant – the tuberous root – that makes up 30% of the plant, however, is discarded. In Europe alone, 800,000 tonnes of chicory roots are generated during the production of chicory salad each year. Currently, after harvesting the chicory leaves, the roots are disposed of as compost or in biogas plants. Wanting to make use of the waste, researchers at the University of Hohenheim have now succeeded in generating hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from the chicory plant’s discarded roots.
Even as a child, Nicole Dubilier was fascinated by the sea. Today, the award-winning researcher lets out a hearty laugh at the thought that a worm was responsible for bringing about an abrupt change in her academic career. Her discovery of the symbiotic three-way relationship between a marine worm and two kinds of bacteria was published in 2001 in Nature, and brought fame to the Hamburg-born scientist. Today, on top of a position as director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, she counts among the world's leading microbiologists.