@article{EckertRudolphGuoetal.2018,
  author    = {Eckert, Alexander and Rudolph, Tobias and Guo, Jiaqi and Mang, Thomas and Walther, Andreas},
  title     = {Exceptionally Ductile and Tough Biomimetic Artificial Nacre with Gas Barrier Function},
  series = {Advanced Materials},
  volume    = {30},
  journal   = {Advanced Materials},
  number    = {32},
  publisher = {Wiley-VCH},
  doi       = {10.1002/adma.201802477},
  pages     = {Article number 1802477},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Synthetic mimics of natural high-performance structural materials have shown great and partly unforeseen opportunities for the design of multifunctional materials. For nacre-mimetic nanocomposites, it has remained extraordinarily challenging to make ductile materials with high stretchability at high fractions of reinforcements, which is however of crucial importance for flexible barrier materials. Here, highly ductile and tough nacre-mimetic nanocomposites are presented, by implementing weak, but many hydrogen bonds in a ternary nacre-mimetic system consisting of two polymers (poly(vinyl amine) and poly(vinyl alcohol)) and natural nanoclay (montmorillonite) to provide efficient energy dissipation and slippage at high nanoclay content (50 wt\%). Tailored interactions enable exceptional combinations of ductility (close to 50\% strain) and toughness (up to 27.5 MJ m⁻³). Extensive stress whitening, a clear sign of high internal dynamics at high internal cohesion, can be observed during mechanical deformation, and the materials can be folded like paper into origami planes without fracture. Overall, the new levels of ductility and toughness are unprecedented in highly reinforced bioinspired nanocomposites and are of critical importance to future applications, e.g., as barrier materials needed for encapsulation and as a printing substrate for flexible organic electronics.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MuellerBeckersMussmannetal.2018,
  author    = {M{\"u}ller, Janina and Beckers, Mario and Mußmann, Nina and Bongaerts, Johannes and B{\"u}chs, Jochen},
  title     = {Elucidation of auxotrophic deficiencies of Bacillus pumilus DSM 18097 to develop a defined minimal medium},
  series = {Microbial Cell Factories},
  volume    = {17},
  journal   = {Microbial Cell Factories},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {BioMed Central},
  issn      = {1475-2859},
  doi       = {10.1186/s12934-018-0956-1},
  pages     = {Article No. 106},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Background Culture media containing complex compounds like yeast extract or peptone show numerous disadvantages. The chemical composition of the complex compounds is prone to significant variations from batch to batch and quality control is difficult. Therefore, the use of chemically defined media receives more and more attention in commercial fermentations. This concept results in better reproducibility, it simplifies downstream processing of secreted products and enable rapid scale-up. Culturing bacteria with unknown auxotrophies in chemically defined media is challenging and often not possible without an extensive trial-and-error approach. In this study, a respiration activity monitoring system for shake flasks and its recent version for microtiter plates were used to clarify unknown auxotrophic deficiencies in the model organism Bacillus pumilus DSM 18097. Results Bacillus pumilus DSM 18097 was unable to grow in a mineral medium without the addition of complex compounds. Therefore, a rich chemically defined minimal medium was tested containing basically all vitamins, amino acids and nucleobases, which are essential ingredients of complex components. The strain was successfully cultivated in this medium. By monitoring of the respiration activity, nutrients were supplemented to and omitted from the rich chemically defined medium in a rational way, thus enabling a systematic and fast determination of the auxotrophic deficiencies. Experiments have shown that the investigated strain requires amino acids, especially cysteine or histidine and the vitamin biotin for growth. Conclusions The introduced method allows an efficient and rapid identification of unknown auxotrophic deficiencies and can be used to develop a simple chemically defined tailor-made medium. B. pumilus DSM 18097 was chosen as a model organism to demonstrate the method. However, the method is generally suitable for a wide range of microorganisms. By combining a systematic combinatorial approach based on monitoring the respiration activity with cultivation in microtiter plates, high throughput experiments with high information content can be conducted. This approach facilitates media development, strain characterization and cultivation of fastidious microorganisms in chemically defined minimal media while simultaneously reducing the experimental effort.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{RoehlenPilasDahmenetal.2018,
  author    = {R{\"o}hlen, Desiree and Pilas, Johanna and Dahmen, Markus and Keusgen, Michael and Selmer, Thorsten and Sch{\"o}ning, Michael Josef},
  title     = {Toward a Hybrid Biosensor System for Analysis of Organic and Volatile Fatty Acids in Fermentation Processes},
  series = {Frontiers in Chemistry},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Chemistry},
  number    = {6},
  publisher = {Frontiers},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  doi       = {10.3389/fchem.2018.00284},
  pages     = {Artikel 284},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Monitoring of organic acids (OA) and volatile fatty acids (VFA) is crucial for the control of anaerobic digestion. In case of unstable process conditions, an accumulation of these intermediates occurs. In the present work, two different enzyme-based biosensor arrays are combined and presented for facile electrochemical determination of several process-relevant analytes. Each biosensor utilizes a platinum sensor chip (14 × 14 mm²) with five individual working electrodes. The OA biosensor enables simultaneous measurement of ethanol, formate, d- and l-lactate, based on a bi-enzymatic detection principle. The second VFA biosensor provides an amperometric platform for quantification of acetate and propionate, mediated by oxidation of hydrogen peroxide. The cross-sensitivity of both biosensors toward potential interferents, typically present in fermentation samples, was investigated. The potential for practical application in complex media was successfully demonstrated in spiked sludge samples collected from three different biogas plants. Thereby, the results obtained by both of the biosensors were in good agreement to the applied reference measurements by photometry and gas chromatography, respectively. The proposed hybrid biosensor system was also used for long-term monitoring of a lab-scale biogas reactor (0.01 m³) for a period of 2 months. In combination with typically monitored parameters, such as gas quality, pH and FOS/TAC (volatile organic acids/total anorganic carbonate), the amperometric measurements of OA and VFA concentration could enhance the understanding of ongoing fermentation processes.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SvaneborgKarimiVarzanehHojdisetal.2018,
  author    = {Svaneborg, Carsten and Karimi-Varzaneh, Hossein Ali and Hojdis, Nils and Fleck, Franz and Everaers, Ralf},
  title     = {Kremer-Grest Models for Universal Properties of Specific Common Polymer Species},
  series = {Soft Condensed Matter},
  journal   = {Soft Condensed Matter},
  number    = {1606.05008},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The Kremer-Grest (KG) bead-spring model is a near standard in Molecular Dynamic simulations of generic polymer properties. It owes its popularity to its computational efficiency, rather than its ability to represent specific polymer species and conditions. Here we investigate how to adapt the model to match the universal properties of a wide range of chemical polymers species. For this purpose we vary a single parameter originally introduced by Faller and M{\"u}ller-Plathe, the chain stiffness. Examples include polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, cis-polyisoprene, polydimethylsiloxane, polyethyleneoxide and styrene-butadiene rubber. We do this by matching the number of Kuhn segments per chain and the number of Kuhn segments per cubic Kuhn volume for the polymer species and for the Kremer-Grest model. We also derive mapping relations for converting KG model units back to physical units, in particular we obtain the entanglement time for the KG model as function of stiffness allowing for a time mapping. To test these relations, we generate large equilibrated well entangled polymer melts, and measure the entanglement moduli using a static primitive-path analysis of the entangled melt structure as well as by simulations of step-strain deformation of the model melts. The obtained moduli for our model polymer melts are in good agreement with the experimentally expected moduli.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{EngelHoltmannUlberetal.2018,
  author    = {Engel, Mareike and Holtmann, Dirk and Ulber, Roland and Tippk{\"o}tter, Nils},
  title     = {Increased Biobutanol Production by Mediator-Less Electro-Fermentation},
  series = {Biotechnology Journal},
  volume    = {14},
  journal   = {Biotechnology Journal},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Wiley-VCH},
  address   = {Weinheim},
  issn      = {1860-7314},
  doi       = {10.1002/biot.201800514},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {A future bio-economy should not only be based on renewable raw materials but also in the raise of carbon yields of existing production routes. Microbial electrochemical technologies are gaining increased attention for this purpose. In this study, the electro-fermentative production of biobutanol with C. acetobutylicum without the use of exogenous mediators is investigated regarding the medium composition and the reactor design. It is shown that the use of an optimized synthetic culture medium allows higher product concentrations, increased biofilm formation, and higher conductivities compared to a synthetic medium supplemented with yeast extract. Moreover, the optimization of the reactor system results in a doubling of the maximum product concentrations for fermentation products. When a working electrode is polarized at -600 mV vs. Ag/AgCl, a shift from butyrate to acetone and butanol production is induced. This leads to an increased final solvent yield of Yᴀᴃᴇ = 0.202 gg⁻¹ (control 0.103 gg⁻¹), which is also reflected in a higher carbon efficiency of 37.6\% compared to 23.3\% (control) as well as a fourfold decrease in simplified E-factor to 0.43. The results are promising for further development of biobutanol production in bioelectrochemical systems in order to fulfil the principles of Green Chemistry.},
  language  = {en}
}