The use of hydrocarbons in industry and trade poses major challenges for companies operating in the cleaning sector: As hydrocarbons are non-polar and lipophilic, contamination can only be removed with great effort and/or by using toxicologically questionable solvents.

Hydrocarbons are contained in various care products, including in the form of polymers or microplastics, e.g. as synthetic waxes in care dispersions. Due to the EU Commission’s constant efforts to reduce microplastic emissions, there is growing concern in the industry that such care products will also be regulated in the future.

The aim of the research project is to isolate microorganisms from the environment (e.g. sewage treatment plants, landfills) and to identify enzymes or enzyme classes that oxidize and degrade hydrocarbons using special molecular biological or biotechnological methods (e.g. metagenome and metatranscriptome analysis, bioinformatic analysis of enzyme-coding sequences using sequence databases) in combination with activity-based methods.

Suitable methods are to be developed that allow activity-based enzyme screening using practically relevant, non-water-soluble substrates and under realistic conditions.

On the basis of such special enzymes, washing and cleaning processes can be developed, the application of which would result in economic advantages for textile service providers operating in the leasing business in the processing of workwear from industry and trade and economic advantages for building cleaners in the basic cleaning of textile floor coverings.