Formic acid in focus

An artificial key enzyme opens up the conversion of CO2 via formic acid to raw materials

18-Dec-2025 - Formate, the salt of formic acid, is seen as an important future pivot for sustainable biotechnologies. A team at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology has developed an enzyme that efficiently converts formate to formaldehyde. This is crucial for the sustainable conversion of CO2 ...

Synthetic Carbon Assimilation Surpasses Nature

New-to-Nature Pathway Outperforms Natural Pathway in Living Bacteria

07-Mar-2025 - For the first time, an international collaboration has demonstrated that synthetic carbon assimilation can operate more efficiently in a living system than its natural counterpart. Researchers in Tobias Erb’s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology engineered a synthetic ...

Capturing CO2 with electricity: A microbial enzyme inspires electrochemistry

Towards a new solution for atmospheric CO2 utilization

04-Oct-2023 - Humans continuously emits greenhouse gases, worsening global warming. For example, carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulates dramatically over the years and is chemically very stable. Yet, some microbes capture CO2 using highly efficient enzymes. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine ...

With formic acid towards CO₂ neutrality

Researchers develop a new method for the sustainable use of CO₂

16-May-2023 - New synthetic metabolic pathways for CO2 fixation could not only help to reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, but also replace conventional chemical manufacturing processes for pharmaceuticals and active ingredients with carbon-neutral, biological processes. A new study demonstrates a ...

New biobattery for hydrogen storage

Microbiologists has succeeded in using bacteria for the controlled storage and release of hydrogen

27-May-2022 - The fight against climate change is making the search for carbon-neutral energy sources increasingly urgent. Green hydrogen, which is produced from water with the help of renewable energies such as wind or solar power, is one of the solutions on which hopes are pinned. However, transporting and ...

Engineered E. coli could make carbohydrates, renewable fuel, from CO2

"The key is for a microbe to use formate as its sole carbon source"

15-Sep-2021 - Researchers from Newcastle University, UK have engineeredEscherichia coli bacteria to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) using hydrogen gas (H2) to convertit into formic acid. The research,published inApplied and Environmental Microbiologyraises the possibility of converting atmospheric CO2 to ...

Environmentally friendly production of mandelic acid

Scientists found a method for the "green" production of the important starting material for the chemical industry

29-May-2020 - Sometimes potentially useful enzymes are not easy to discover because their biocatalytic capabilities may go beyond their natural and thus known range of action. By recombining a newly discovered enzymatic capability, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology led ...

Sustainable use of CO2 using a modified bacterium

13-Mar-2020 - A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm, led by Dr. Arren Bar-Even, has succeeded in reprogramming the diet of the bacterium E. coli in such a way that it can use formic acid or methanol as its sole source of nutrition. These simple organic ...

Duplicate or mirror? Laser light determines chirality of molecules

19-Mar-2019 - Seven of the ten most frequent medications contain chiral agents. These are molecules that occur in right- or left-handed forms. During chemical synthesis both forms usually occur in equal parts and have to be separated afterward, because chirality determines the agent’s effect in the body. ...

Ice-free through the winter

Formic acid enables environmentally friendly deicing of runways and roads – and is successful in many other applications

05-Feb-2013 - Ants, jellyfish and ground beetles use it to defend themselves and when hunting. How effectively it can protect stinging nettles against predators is something many of us have experienced first hand: the substance in question is formic acid. The acrid and pungent smelling liquid produced by ...