The Department of Biotechnology, led by Prof. Dr. Kornél L. Kovács is part of the Institute of Biology at the Faculty of Science and Informatics. The most significant research activity of the team, which has developed a collaboration with the Institute of Biophysics, the Biological Research Center and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, is focused on hydrogen production by biological systems. Hydrogen is one of the energy carriers that will substitute fossil energy carriers in the future in order to ensure humanity’s sustainable development.

Living organisms can produce hydrogen in various ways. Many of these approaches, whether on their own or in combination with others, can generate hydrogen economically from renewable sources. Prof. Kovács’s team at the Department of Biotechnology is engaged in the generation of efficient and long lasting versions of the microbes that are of key importance in such processes. They are examining the extension possibilities of the technology’s life span, and the methods to increase the working stability of the hydrogenase enzymes, one of the key molecular players in these systems. A range of related basic and applied development projects are studied as well.

One of their outstanding achievements is the internationally registered patent for a method that increases biogas production by 30 -50% by adding specially selected hydrogen producing mesophilic or thermophilic bacteria. Biogas production is significant as the anaerobic treatment of organic waste and biomass offers double advantage: harmful organic pollutants can be neutralized while producing a renewable energy source.

In cooperation with the BayGen Applied Research Institute, the team started to apply up-to-date metagenomic methods to examine the extremely complex and continuously changing biogas producing microbial communities. Methods are being developed which provide the opportunity to engineer microbial communities that are able to utilise optimally the available raw materials, and are also exploitable in the daily operations of biogas facilities. This way, the efficiency and the security of biogas producing power plants can be significantly improved due to the results of an exciting new basic research project on the understanding of the relationships within microbe communities.