Research Group of Tanja Vidaković-Koch
Electrochemical Energy Conversion: Powering Artificial Life
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Magdeburg
Electrochemical Energy Conversion (EEC) group of Tanja Vidaković-Koch focuses on understanding and development of new electrochemical processes and related diagnostic methods. Our special focus is on dynamics of electrochemical processes in fuel cells and electrolysers, as well as on bioelectrochemical processes.
In the context of MaxSynBio research, EEC group is working on conceptually new process designs for the energy conversion. By following a bottom-up approach of the synthetic biology, our motivation is to design and reconstitute energy conversion infrastructure of an artificial cell. Toward this end, chemically-driven (or substrate-driven) and light-driven approach to energy regeneration, in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), are explored. Finally, EEC is developing novel methodology for functional integration of energy regeneration module with various artificial cell designs.