Master Thesis at IFA-Tulln
Environmental Biotechnology | Geobiotechnology
Determination of growth parameters of selected methanogenic
archaea assessed under anaerobic conditions

Background:
The working group Geobiotechnology and Environmental Chemistry (Andreas P. Loibner) at
IFA-Tulln is currently looking for a motivated and curious student of biotechnology or a related
field of study, who is willing to join our group to accomplish her/his master thesis.
Our main research is concerned with developing storage technologies for renewable energy.
One of such technologies is called geo-methanation, a biocatalytic process carried out by
methanogenic archaea in depleted underground gas storages, which allows the conversion of
green hydrogen (generated by electrolysis of water) and carbon dioxide to methane. Our
ongoing project BioPore investigates the effects of various parameters on microbial growth
processes in both porous matrices and in synthetic formation brine.

Research topic:
This master thesis reaches out to determine growth and methane evolution rates of selected
methanogens and a mixed microbial community in both serum bottle and in high-pressure
bioreactor experiments. Predefined gas mixtures containing hydrogen and carbon dioxide will
be fed to the respective cultures at anaerobic conditions. Analytical methods such as gas and
high performance liquid chromatography will be used to characterise the metabolic activities
of the microbial cultures upon alterations of the experimental parameters. Furthermore,
molecular methods such as qPCR and NGS may be applied to analyse temporal variations of
the microbial community structure