Andreas Künkel

BASF | BASF · Material & Systems Research

To achieve a sustainable circular economy, polymers need to start transitioning to recycled and biobased feedstock and accomplish CO2 emission neutrality. This is not only true for structural polymers, such as in packaging or engineering applications, but also for functional polymers in liquid formulations, such as adhesives, lubricants, thickeners...

To achieve a sustainable circular economy, polymers need to start transitioning to recycled and biobased feedstock and accomplish CO2 emission neutrality. This is not only true for structural polymers, such as in packaging or engineering applications, but also for functional polymers in liquid formulations, such as adhesives, lubricants, thickeners...

Using biodegradable instead of conventional plastics in agricultural applications promises to help overcome plastic pollution of agricultural soils. However, analytical limitations impede our understanding of plastic biodegradation in soils. Utilizing stable carbon isotope (¹³C-)labelled poly(butylene succinate) (PBS), a synthetic polyester, we her...

Water-soluble polymers (WSPs) have unique properties that are valuable in diverse applications ranging from home and personal care products to agricultural formulations. For applications that result in the release of WSPs into natural environments or engineered systems, such as agricultural soils and wastewater streams, biodegradable as opposed to...

Environmentally friendly functionalization and recycling processes for synthetic polymers have recently gained momentum, and enzymes play a central role in these procedures. However, natural enzymes must be engineered to accept synthetic polymers as substrates. To enhance the activity on synthetic polyesters, the canonical amino acid methionine in...

The article contains sections titled: 1.Introduction2.Biodegradability and Toxicology2.1.Mechanism of Biodegradation2.2.Toxicity of Biodegradable Polymers2.3.Standards for Biodegradable Polymers2.3.1.Controlled Composting Test2.3.2Controlled Test for Aerobic Biodegradation in Soil2.3.3.Home Composting2.3.4.Standard Assessment of Biodegradable Polym...

A method for recycling a paper product sized, coated, or both sized and coated with a polymer, including: pulping an aqueous wastepaper suspension including a paper product in the presence of a hydrolase, the paper product being a paper product sized and/or coated with a polyester to obtain an aqueous solution, which is a waste paper suspension inc...

Salen Metal Complexes as Catalysts for the Synthesis of Polycarbonates from Cyclic Ethers and Carbon Dioxide, by Donald J. Darensbourg.- Material Properties of Poly(Propylene Carbonates), by Gerrit. A. Luinstra and Endres Borchardt.- Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) from Carbon Monoxide, by Robert Reichardt and Bernhard Rieger. - Ecoflex(R) and Ecovio(R): B...

Biodegradable polymers are sustainable alternatives to standard plastics in applications where the functional property of biodegradability is an advantage. Ecoflex® is the brand name of completely biodegradable aliphatic–aromatic polyesters produced by BASF. By the use of renewable raw materials either in the production of Ecoflex® itself and/or by...

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The high information demand in biotechnical process development makes shaken bioreactors an essential tool for process development. By far most of all biotechnological experiments are carried out in shaken bioreactors. Nevertheless, the reaction conditions in these systems often are not representative of the following conditions of the technical sc...

Methanosarcina barkeri has recently been shown to produce a multisubunit membrane-bound [NiFe] hydrogenase designated Ech (Escherichia coli hydrogenase 3) hydrogenase. In the present study Ech hydrogenase was purified to apparent homogeneity in a high yield. The enzyme preparation obtained only contained the six polypeptides which had previously be...

Most methanogenic Archaea contain an unusual cytoplasmic fumarate reductase which catalyzes the reduction of fumarate with coenzyme M (CoM-S-H) and coenzyme B (CoB-S-H) as electron donors forming succinate and CoM-S-S-CoB as products. We report here on the purification and characterization of this thiol:fumarate reductase (Tfr) from Methanobacteriu...

Methanogenic archaea are known to contain two types of [NiFe] hydrogenases designated F420-reducing hydrogenase and F420-non-reducing hydrogenase. We report here that they additionally contain Escherichia coli hydrogenase-3-type [NiFe] hydrogenases. The evidence is based on biochemical studies and analysis of the subunit primary structure of this h...

Heterodisulfide reductase from methanol-grown cells of Methanosarcina barkeri (MbHdrDE) is a membrane-bound enzyme composed of a 46-kDa subunit MbHdrD and a 23-kDa subunit MbHdrE. The enzyme has been shown to contain 0.6 mol heme and 20 mol Fe/S per mol heterodimer. In addition, substoichiometric amounts of FAD, thought to be an essential component...