Making molecules with bacteria and electrochemistry, that’s what drives Ludovic Jourdin in a nutshell. This relatively new field is developing quickly and has much to offer. ‘We work multidisciplinarily from the nano scale up to the industrial scale.’

Ludovic Jourdin, Associate Professor of Biotechnology at Delft University of Technology, is usually very enthusiastic, he says while we take the stairs to a quiet spot on the second floor of the Department of Biotechnological Engineering. ‘But it’s been a very busy week and a thunderstorm kept me awake last night. I’ll try to be as enthusiastic as normal, though.’ And he kept his word; with great animation and his smile never far away, Jourdin shares his work in microbial electrosynthesis (MES), a relatively new field of which he was one of the pioneers.