The SFB 1313 team came together on February 6, 2026, to kick off the third funding period of the Collaborative Research Center. Around 70 members, colleagues and friends met at the Eulenhof of the University of Stuttgart. Our SFB 1313 spokesperson Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Steeb and Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Manfred Bischoff, Vice Rector for Research and Early Career Researchers at the University of Stuttgart, welcomed all guests with very appreciative and motivating introduction words.
Holger Steeb gave an overview about past activities within SFB 1313, the research structure, developments, achievements and results as well as an outlook regarding the third and last funding period. Porous media can be found almost everywhere. Flow, transport and deformation processes can be found in environmental, technical and biological systems. A special focus will lay on biomineralisation and on the vision topic on salt precipitation, which is a huge environmental problem. Thus, it is important to get a fundamental understanding of these processes taking place in porous media.
Our invited speaker was Prof. Dr.-Ing. Olaf A. Cirpka from the University of Tübingen. He gave a talk on “Models and Microbes".
Abstract
The activity of microorganisms plays a crucial role in the natural cycling of elements and the fate of contaminants in the environment. Because microbial dynamics are always coupled to physical transport of the reactants, inter-phase mass transfer, and abiotic reactions, the level of detail by which microbial processes need to be addressed in models depends on the type of overall system control, the scale of investigation, and the research question. The presentation will show examples of bioreactive transport in porous media, in which physical mixing, mass-transfer of reactants into cells, or the microbially induced release of reactants from the matrix are rate limiting. Based on the specific rate limitation, different simplifications of bioreactive transport on scales relevant for management are permissible. The rapid development of analytical techniques, particularly compound-specific isotope analysis and molecular-biological methods, provides new opportunities to monitor microbial processes in the environment. Yet standard models have difficulties to make use of this information, and simple interpretations of the new data can be misleading if the underlying assumptions are not severely checked. The additional data come with additional processes to be represented, requiring additional parameters. Coupled modeling allows a deeper system understanding, potentially revealing unexpected nonlinearities, or hysteretic behavior. The presentation ends with persistent open questions in the modeling of microbial activity in subsurface environments.
After the official part of the SFB 1313 event, all guests came together for drinks and finger food. It was great to celebrate the huge team succes together and to kick off the third funding phase in such a manner.
