BL6-1 EnzyPol

In the plastics processing industry, cobalt is used as an accelerator for curing composite materials such as glass fiber-reinforced plastics based on unsaturated polyester resins. A major area of application is vehicle and boat construction. Rotor blades for wind turbines are also made from these composite materials. In 2020, the European market for composites cured with cobalt was over 330,000 tons.

Due to its classification as carcinogenic and its limited availability, the EnzyPol project aims to replace cobalt with a biotechnologically produced enzyme as a substitute product with equivalent performance. To this end, suitable enzymes must be identified and tested and optimized based on application criteria. In addition, the development and optimization of appropriate microbial production processes for the enzymes and the economic evaluation of the substitute material in application tests play a major role. The aim of the project is to develop the production process for the enzyme product from microcultivation to laboratory scale and to complete the transfer to technical pilot scale.