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Molly Morse is chief executive officer of Mango Materials , Inc. This article was prepared by the U.S. National Science Foundation for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and appeared in the February 2014 way out of Chemical Engineering Progress . Morse contributed this clause toLive Science’sExpert Voices : Op - Ed & Insights .
What if we could make theGreat Pacific Garbage Patchjust disappear ? What if plastics did n’t accumulate in landfill ? What if we could deoxidize nursery gas emissions while replacing up to 30 percent of the world ’s plastics with a biodegradable substitute ?
With federal funding, Mango Materials is using bacteria like these to create biodegradable plastics.
Researchers have tried for decades to achieve those goal . One approach was to develop an effective production process for poly - hydroxyalkanoate ( PHA ) — a biodegradable polymer like to the polypropylene used to make plastic packaging .
scientist at Stanford University and a Palo Alto , Calif.-based start - up company called Mango Materials have come up with a young way to make PHA from dissipation methane throttle . And , withfundingfrom the U.S. National Science Foundation , Mango Materials is advancing the process toward commercialization .
PHA is a biodegradable polyester that is produced naturally inside some bacterium under the conditions of excess carbon and limited nutrient availability . research worker are developing mental process to make PHA at a commercial musical scale , typically involving bacteria strains that have been genetically modified to boost production and to accept a carbon seed of Indian corn - based boodle . The microorganisms feed on the plant - derived sugars and produce PHA . The PHA is then separated from the bacteria and made into pellet that can be model into plastic product .
With federal funding, Mango Materials is using bacteria like these to create biodegradable plastics.
However , that approach has several defect : It requires exercise of farming soil and other inputs to produce feedstock , and it competes with the food for thought provision .
Mango Materials ' operation uses bacteria grow in fermenters to transmute methane and oxygen , along with added nutrients ( to supply supernumerary carbon ) , into PHA . Eventually , the PHA - rich bacteria — now literally conceited with PHA granules — are remove from the fermenters , and the worthful polymer is separated , via proprietary techniques , from the bacteria . The PHA is then rinsed , clean house and dry out as ask .
After the products made from the PHA have reached the terminal of their useful life , the charge card can be degrade anaerobically ( without air travel ) to bring out methane gas . This come together the eyelet and provides a reinvigorated feedstock for PHA production . Because PHA ’s prop can be pick off by motley the copolymer depicted object or with additive , Mango Materials has identified a scope of coating .
Bacteria containing granules of poly-hydroxyalkanoate (PHA) — a biodegradable polymer similar to the polypropylene used to make plastic packaging — inside their bacterial cell walls.
" We are presently sharpen on applications where biodegradability is fundamental , " say Molly Morse , chief executive officer at Mango Materials . " However , we ’re open to all sort of program and are eager to bring PHA bioplastics to mart . "
This unequalled approach addresses challenges that have derail previous attempts at PHA commercialization . Other summons use scratch as a carbon paper feedstock , whereas Mango Materials uses thriftlessness methane — which is substantially less expensive than sugar . " By using methane gas as the feedstock , we can importantly drive down costs of production , " Morse says .
In accession , the process rely on a mixed residential area of waste bacteria that are obtained through innate choice rather than genetic technology . Using wild bacteria that are not genetically modify alleviates some people ’s concerns about genetically modified organism . And , the use of a mixed residential district of wild bacterium reduces output monetary value because it eliminates the need to sterilize equipment .
Poly-hydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a biodegradable polymer, that Mango Materials produced from bacteria consuming methane waste gas.
" This stands in contrast to the summons many biotech companies use that demand in high spirits - pureness , genetically engineer culture , " say Allison Pieja , Director of Technology at Mango Materials . As an added environmental benefit , the process set apart methane , a potent greenhouse gaseous state , and provides an economic incentive for methane capture at adroitness such as landfills , effluent treatment plants and dairy farm .
The unused , vented methane from California landfill ( based on 2010 data from theMethane to Markets Partnership ) , if used as PHA feedstock , would yield more than 100 million hammer of plastic per yr . ( This estimate is based on Mango Materials ' internal calculation using its own rates and yields ) .
Mango Materials has vetted this technology and achieved first-class yield at the laboratory ordered series . Field field have shown that the methane - ware cultures produce just as well on waste biogas , which include contaminants such as sulfides , as on pure methane . Now , the company is setting out to achieve the same fruit at a commercial ordered series . The party ’s standard commercial-grade plants will be sized to plow the methane produced at an modal wastewater treatment plant — enough to create more than 2 million pounds per year of PHA .
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Students help set up the Mango Materials bio-reactor for producing “green” plastics.
