Sustainable raw materials for a green chemical industry

Launch of the BEFuel project: From exhaust gases and wastewater to e-fuels and high-quality chemicals

29-Jan-2024 - How can e-fuels and biosurfactants for industry be produced from exhaust gases and wastewater? An interdisciplinary consortium coordinated by Fraunhofer UMSICHT is addressing this question in the newly launched BEFuel project. The focus is on coupled bioelectrochemical production – i.e. the ...

New energy conversion layer for biosolar cells

04-Jan-2021 - Photosynthetic proteins can convert light energy into other forms of energy. Researchers want to make this technology usable for the industrial production of fuels, for example. A research team from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), together with colleagues from Lisbon, has produced a ...

Improving the lifetime of bioelectrodes for solar energy conversion

29-Apr-2019 - The key to a long life for bioelectrodes lies in an oxygen-free environment. The use of proteins involved in the photosynthetic process enables the development of affordable and efficient devices for energy conversion. However, although proteins such as photosystem I are robust in nature, the use ...

Researchers use cyanobacteria for the production of chemicals

Sustainable chemical processes

01-Apr-2016 - In order to manufacture chemical products in the industry, a high energy input is required, which consumes mainly our fossil resources. At RUB, two scientists are researching into a resource-efficient and, consequently, sustainable approach. Prof Dr Robert Kourist from the junior research group ...

Proteins that replace silicon: A semi-artificial leaf faster than “natural” photosynthesis

22-Aug-2014 - A cooperation between chemists and biologists from the Ruhr-University Bochum resulted in a new method for the very efficient integration of photosynthetic proteins in photovoltaics. Their recent report in Chemistry - a European journal, selected as a very important paper (VIP) by the journal, ...

Efficient production of hydrogen by algae

20-Aug-2014 - Microalgae need only sunlight and water for the production of hydrogen. However, in order to make hydrogen production by microalgae economically feasible their efficiency has to be increased by 1-2 orders of magnitude. In the current issue of Energy and Environmental Science scientists from the ...