Detergent Research: The Best of Nature
Environmentally friendly washing
Environmental Award winner 2008: Holger Zinke
Ph.D. biologist Holger Zinke, 45, is the founder and CEO of Brain AG in Zwingenberg near Darmstadt. The biotech company has been researching microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi or algae for 15 years; It decodes their genes, optimizes them and develops prototypes for a wide variety of applications in international cosmetic, chemical and food companies. A process that has made it possible for some years to replace chemical products with biology - with a strong upward trend.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What exactly is your company doing? How do you have to imagine your work?
Holger Zinke: We have built up a bio-archive, which consists of a rather extensive collection of microorganisms. They are all available in the lab so that we can quickly find active ingredients. However: Today only 100 microorganisms are used worldwide for industrial purposes. There are about 5000 different of these micro-organisms in a single gram of forest soil alone.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Why are there so few?
Holger Zinke: Because so far of the 5,000 can cultivate at most twenty, so multiply in the laboratory. All other 4980 can indeed be detected and can be seen under the microscope, but they could not be used so far.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Why are these microorganisms so interesting to you?
Holger Zinke: The main task of soil microorganisms is composting. Among other things, they produce enzymes, ie proteins that accelerate biochemical processes and break down or chemically alter certain substances, such as chlorophyll or starch in leaves. Incidentally, such processes also produce this musty, damp smell of earth, caused by a substance called geosmin. It is formed as one of many, many metabolic products in the decomposition by a specific microorganism.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Is anything more accurate?
Holger Zinke: Each of these microorganisms has 1500 to 2000 genes, and each of these genes is responsible for a specific metabolite. This can either be an enzyme or a biocatalyst or, as in the case of geosmin, a natural product. Fortunately, the microorganism that produces geosmin grows even under laboratory conditions, as this substance is used to make perfume. Since most of the microorganisms can not be grown, and we are only interested in their metabolic products, a few years ago we developed a method that allows us to extract the genetic material directly from the soil.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What's Next?
Holger Zinke: We try to integrate the individual genes into one of the industrially usable microorganisms. Because the ability to propagate is the prerequisite for later to be able to use the blueprints of these genes at all. Typically, this is usually how it works: For example, one company hires us to find an enzyme that allows paper to be coated. We then provide about 200 prototypes of the desired type from our bio-archive. Often, however, we realize that one or the other either does not have enough of the proper property, or that the various prototypes have different properties that might all be desirable.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What can you do? Change the genes?
Holger Zinke: Yes. We optimize them biotechnically or combine several with each other. Incidentally, there are no risks to the environment. Even in nature, enzymes are optimized in exactly the same way; that is a completely natural process. And the new enzyme does not differ from the precursor: it is also natural. In addition, the modified microorganism itself does not enter the environment, but only its end product is used.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What skills does such an enzyme possess?
Holger Zinke: It works catalytically, that is, it accelerates a chemical reaction without consuming itself, and that is something very essential.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: An example, please.
Holger Zinke: In order to remove a grease stain from a cotton dress, it can be treated with a solvent during cleaning, but it is difficult to break down biologically. Or one uses during washing least amounts of a corresponding enzyme. It reproduces the same reaction several hundred thousand times a second without changing.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: And why does the fabric get clean then?
Holger Zinke: We are dealing with a biological separation problem: A biological fiber, such as cotton, that has become soiled by a biological substance, such as grease, becomes clean again when treated with a biological enzyme that is able to to break down exactly this fat. One milligram of enzyme instead of one kilo of chemicals: replacing one with the other makes a huge difference. In addition, with one of our partners, for example, we have been able to improve the efficiency of washing powders by improving enzymes so that soiled textiles are clean at 40 degrees Celsius and not only at 60 degrees Celsius.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: ... which probably also protects the environment.
Holger Zinke: Yes, because it uses only half as much energy, which means that 1.3 million tons of climate-damaging carbon dioxide can be saved each year.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What developments can you envisage in the near future in the field of industrial biotechnology?
Holger Zinke: I believe that we are only beginning to develop highly effective products, especially in the cosmetics sector. And if it were really possible to biologize the chemical product range, then I would find that very, very satisfying.
