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 ...

Thianthrenium chemistry allows for reactivity switch of a nucleophilic amino acid into a versatile intermediate

Useful and broadly applicable tool in the field of chemical biology

03-Jan-2024 - Chemical diversification of proteins is an important concept in the study of biological processes and the complex structures of the proteins themselves. It involves using quick and mild reactions that selectively target a specific amino acid and therefore a building block of proteins. Cysteine is ...

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 Methodology for anti-Markovnikow products

This might be helpful to tackle synthesis problems

23-Feb-2023 - Vladimir Vasilyevich Markovnikov was a 19th century Russian chemist who worked at the universities of St. Petersburg, Odessa and Moscow, among others. The so-called Markovnikov rule, well known already with young students of chemistry, is named after him. This rule says that when protic acids are ...

Chemical triad forms seeds for clouds

Synergistic particle formation in the upper troposphere by nitric acid, sulfuric acid and ammonia

20-May-2022 - Atmospheric aerosol particles are needed as seeds to form clouds, but the controlling processes are not fully understood. By combining experiments in the CERN cloud cham-ber and computer modelling, a team of international researchers, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for ...

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 ...

Stiff fibres spun from slime

Nanoparticles from the secretion of velvet worms form polymer fibres that can be recycled in water

18-Oct-2017 - Nature is an excellent teacher – even for material scientists. Researchers, including scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, have now observed a remarkable mechanism by which polymer materials are formed. In order to capture prey, velvet worms shoot out a sticky ...

Soil crusts emit nitrogen oxides and nitrous acid

Study shows that biological soil crusts release large quantities of reactive nitrogen compounds

03-Dec-2015 - For a long time now, researchers have been racking their brains over the large quantities of reactive nitrogen compounds observed in arid regions after periods of rainfall without being able to identify the source. A study is now bringing light into the darkness. Bettina Weber and her colleagues ...