Country Overshoot Day marks the date each year when a country would have exhausted its annual biocapacity budget — if everyone in the world lived like its population. In Germany, that date in 2025 falls as early as 5 May — more than three months earlier than in the previous year. At Leipzig University’s b-ACTmatter research and transfer centre, innovative approaches are being explored to address the growing scarcity of resources in the face of a rising global population — through sustainable production processes and circular economy technologies. The REPLACER project is developing new generations of hybrid living materials. These materials are designed to reduce plastic pollution by using CO₂ and methane, says project lead Dr Rohan Karande in an interview.
In the REPLACER project, researchers are developing so-called hybrid living materials. It is about microbial proteins with a low carbon footprint, high acceptance and affordable costs – through the use of greenhouse gases. The long-term goal: sustainable production of feed proteins. Applied research, in other words, with options for later transfer. The project is coordinated by the Research and Transfer Center for Bioactive Matter (b-ACTmatter).
The REPLACER team led by co-investigator Dr. Rohan Karande (center) in the laboratory in front of the selbs column bioreactors for the production of microbial proteins. Photo: Swen Reichhold / University of Leipzig
Scientific and technological innovations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and plastic waste while finding a sustainable solution to the current feed production system are urgently needed to address climate change, plastic pollution and food insecurity,” says coordinator Dr. Rohan Karande. He recently started as a junior research group leader at the Research and Transfer Center for Bioactive Matter. “To tackle this, we are dedicated to developing and scaling up bioreactors to produce microbial biomass as a value-added feed product from carbon dioxide and methane,” he explains. “We hope to be able to test a pilot-scale prototype in three to four years.”
