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Tiny yeast-filled robots help brew beer quickly and more efficiently

Millimetre-sized robots made of iron oxide and packed with yeast speed up fermentation of beer by swimming around in the fermenting container and can be removed with a magnet, eliminating the need for filtering out yeast

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

26 April 2023

The fermentation of beer

Beer fermentation vats

Shutterstock/Digieva

Tiny robots packed with yeast speed up the fermentation of beer and eliminate the need to filter it before bottling.

Using living yeast to convert sugar to alcohol is a key part of making beer, but it can be time consuming, and the yeast can spoil and ruin a whole batch of the drink. Martin Pumera at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic and his colleagues thought that both issues could be addressed by swapping yeast for tiny, metallic yeast-filled bots.

They made the robots, …

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