Content
Microbial processes in the environment: methanogenesis, biogas production, anaerobic methane oxidation, homoacetogenesis, sulfate reduction, transformation of halogenated contaminants, degradation of plastics, element cycles, anaerobic ammonium oxidation (topics vary from year to year)
Application of microbial processes in environmental biotechnology
The lecture contains aspects of sustainability (CO2 fixation, reduction of CO2-, methane- and NO-emissions, sustainable production of chemicals etc).
Methods:
- Microbial phylogeny, 16S rRNA-gen analyses, Microbial population analyses
- Annotation of genomes of biotechnologically relevant microorganisms
- Use of bioinformatic tools (genome sequencing, annotation, functional genomics, mass spectrometry)
- Isotope methods (isotopic fractionation, isotopic labelling)
- Metagenomics for the identification of biotechnologically useful enzyme activities
- Single cell isolation and sequencing
