Annegret Budach

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Biodegradation and mineralization in natural and lab scale systems are often limited by the amount of terminal electron acceptors in the environment in particular in water saturated soils or sediments where electron acceptors are often not available in excess. Under anoxic or partly anoxic conditons often nitrous oxides or methane are formed when oxygen or nitrate as electron acceptors are depleted. The PhD project is thus to optimize the system performance of a laboratory scale composting systems and constructed wetland reactors by using microbial electrochemistry in order to overcome limitation of electron acceptors. Electrons that are produced during oxidation in the anaerobic zone are going to get transported through extracellular electron transfer to the aerobic zone where they are needed for reduction of oxygen. Such processes will improve the microbial metabolism in systems with limited electron acceptors, will improve the biological degradation, and will decrease the greenhouse gas formation under anaerobic conditions.