Stephan Rohrbach, M. Sc.

Stephan Rohrbach, M. Sc.
Position
Research Staff
Institute of Microbiology

Research project microplastic

Plastic is indispensable for our modern life. Packaging, clothes and medical devices are dependent on plastic as material. Its versatile properties, its price and its weight make it an ideal material for uncountable amounts of devices.
Another key factor for its success is its durability, which is simultaneously the reason why plastic has gained increasing attention in the course of the past decades as a global pollutant. Alarmingly huge amounts of plastic enter the environment due to human misbehavior, but as well through fragmenting processes. Physical and chemical stressors cause the fragmentation of plastic in the environment which leads finally to Microplastic (MP). MP imposes a continuous risk for harmful effects on nature and to human health due to its ability to absorb huge amounts of potentially toxic xenobiotics and its capacity to harbor pathogenic microbial communities on its large surfaces. Despite these health hazards, plastic should not be neglected as a source for valuable precursors in the chemical industry. This potential might be harnessed by microbes which could convert plastic biochemically to useable and valuable intermediates.

In my research project we are working in an interdisciplinary research cluster (CRC 1357 Microplastic) to elucidate the microbial community which is related to different types of MP. This information should help us to better estimate the potential of health hazards caused by MPs. On the other hand, this information is also useful to find microorganisms which are able to use plastic as a nutrient and ideally have plastic mineralizing potentials.