Targeted bacterial transport in porous media will represent a transformative advance for many scientific disciplines, including medicine, agriculture, hydrogeology, and many industrial and technical fields. This could open up new avenues, for example, in the bioremediation of contaminated soil and groundwater, in drug transport in biological tissue, and in bacteria-based fertilization. EK-Target pursues the approach of effectively mobilizing bacteria through the technical design of the surface coating of bacterial cells and the application of multidirectional electric fields. The bacteria could then be precisely controlled and guided by electric fields applied to the outside of the porous media.

Applicant: Professor Massimo Rolle, Institute of Applied Geosciences, TU Darmstadt

Co-applicant: Dr.-Ing. Shelesh Agrawal, IWAR Institute, TU Darmstadt

Further “LOEWE Exploration” projects at TU Darmstadt