Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Many processes in nature are highly efficient and very fast. Therefore it is an obvious idea to screen natural structures and processes for applicability in related industrial processes. Especially microorganisms are known to be highly efficient in what they do. We thusly use microbes or microbial structures for metal removal and metal recovery, the development of novel catalysts and the development of biosensors [1, 2]. In our group we investigated different processes to fix dissolved metals and ecotoxic substances and how they can be used for metal filtering and nanoparticle (NP) synthesis. One scientific topic is the reduction of soluble selenium oxyanion selenit to elemental selenium by Azospirillum brasilense. The formation of hardly soluble Se(0) nanoparticles during this process might be of interest for both bioremediation of selenium contaminated water and for nanotechnology (photovoltaic/ semiconducting industry).
Furthermore, we intensively study self-assembling biomolecules, namely S-layers, which represents the outermost cell envelope of many bacteria and archaea. This highly ordered protein polymers are an attractive matrix to functionalize all kinds of materials. Their surface with its numerous functional groups and their regular distributed pores offers ideal binding and nucleation sites for various metals e.g. gold, palladium and platinum as well as for metal oxide nanoparticles e.g. composed of titanium dioxide or zinc oxide. By reducing bound metals, well defined and regularly arranged nanoparticles were obtained [3, 4]. These nanoparticle lattices can be used as catalysts for organic synthesis like homogeneous and heterogeneous hydrogenation and for metallization of surfaces (Pd-NP), improved photo catalysts with higher degradation rates (TiO2-, ZnO-NP), for defined synthesis of single and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT’s) in case of Pt-NP and the development of bio sensory layer systems (Au-NP).
To increase the efficiency of the resulting nanoparticle lattice, we have introduced adhesion promoter between the technical surfaces and living microorganisms or S-layers by using the layer by layer technique [5]. This results in higher layer stability and a fully covered technical surface.

[1] Raff, J. et al. (2003), Chem. Mat. 15, 240-244.
[2] Sleytr, U.B. et al. (1999), Angew. Chem.-Int. Edit. 38, 1035-1054.
[3] Wahl, R. et al. (2001), Adv. Materials 13, 736-740.
[4] Pollmann, K. et al. (2006), Biotechnol. Adv. 24, 58-68.
[5] Decher, G. et al. (1994), Biosensors & Bioelectronics 9, 677-684.