Porous green ceramics with entrapped biofunctionality for biotechnological applications
Incorporation of biomolecules such as enzymes or living microorganisms such as bacteria or yeast cells into porous inorganic matrices offers a great perspective for biotechnological applications. Compared to conventional post-functionalization approaches of sintered surfaces the targeted incorporation of biologically relevant functionalities into the matrix of an accessible network of pores during the materials processing opens up new perspectives for reaching high turn-over rates and high levels of biotransformation, respectively. In this project an environmentally friendly gelcasting, one-pot process based on the ionotropic gelation of biopolymers will be used to generate porous oxide ceramics in the green state where biological entities are entrapped in the ceramic matrix. For this purpose different pore structures varying in their size and morphology and their pore wall functionality are of high interest to analyze both the loading and stability of the embedded biofunctionality as well as the reaction at the interface between the ceramic material and the biological system, i.e. kinetics of the substrate acceptability and product release. These interactions at the biointerface will be analyzed and evaluated by both chemical and biological methods and supported by simulative approaches. By applying standard ionotropic gelation techniques for the generation of interparticle pores, especially freeze-casting and direct foaming methods will be developed for biocatalyst and microorganism entrapment to evaluate the potential of lamellar pores and cellular structures for biotechnology applications. To strengthen the cooperations within the research training group such porous ceramic structures are also of high interest for filter applications dealing with the investigation of dielectrophoretic effects and emulsification of fluid-fluid systems, respectively. Furthermore, µCT in combination with NMR methods can be beneficially used to characterize mass transport processes in the porous structures for generating 3D information in real time.
Contact: Kroll