New biodegradable plastics coming soon?

[F8L]

I just got back from a talk by two professors from CSU Chico that was hosted by my college. They were showing us work being done on bacteria and their ability to create lactic acid which is then used to create biodegradable plastics. Now I know we already have the ability to produce such plastics but currently the main source of feedstocks (raw materials needed to feed the bacteria) are glucose from corn or other food crops. This is not a sustainable feedstock for us to utilize for the same reasons enthanol produced from corn is not. It simply uses up too much arable land (land that can be used for crops), water, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.

Working with grants from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (a company that takes environmental issues seriously-check out their stewardship page), they have isolated a specific bacteria that can utilize waste products in the form of rice hulls (for glucose) and spent brewery yeasts (for nitrogen) to form the needed lactic acid. Through further processes (the addition of NaOH - sodium hydroxide) they are able to amplify the bactial production of lactic acid to levels near those when then the bacteria are feed a standard laboratory diet of corn-based glucose.

The idea is to utilize a waste product to create a new product that can replace non-biodegradable plastics. This will allow producers of such waste to generate income instead of paying disposal fees and lower the price of feedstocks for producers of plastics. This is the kind of cyclical production that many environmental economists have been talking about for decades.

I'm sorry I don't have videos or pretty pictures but I thought some of you might find this research interesting.

Maybe when I'm not so tired I'll write about the other half of the talk where they were using bacteria to clean up fuel leaks from planes, jets (especially the leaky SR-71 Blackbird) and trucks out at Beale A.F.B.)

[galaxee]

i love microorganisms like that. too cool. now to figure out the metabolic pathway they use.

[dogfriend]

I will think about this post the next time I'm enjoying a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

[F8L]

Originally Posted by galaxee

i love microorganisms like that. too cool. now to figure out the metabolic pathway they use.

I've not studied bacteria in any great detail so I couldn't tell you for sure but I do know the bacteria they used in the studies.

Lactobacillus rhamnosus

[galaxee]

bacteria are fun, that is, if they're not the pathogenic kind

i was just wondering out loud (ok, in text) what enzymes they had that the others didn't have... and i'm not about to go diving through the primary lit... AGAIN... after an entire day of pubmed, ms word, and endnote.

[tripp]

Originally Posted by galaxee

... and i'm not about to go diving through the primary lit... AGAIN... after an entire day of pubmed, ms word, and endnote.

My condolences. Cool stuff F8L. Using waste streams to produce a useful product is going to be a big part of the future. Treating brewery waste water is very expensive because the waste water is so nutrient rich. That apparently makes it expensive for the municipality to deal with. Up in Ft. Collins, New Belgium Brewing Co installed a large digester system that's attached to a 290 kW micro turbine. The system saves them loads of money because the amount of waste they produce is much lower (the bacteria eat it up). The fact that they can then produce about 65% of their electricity in house is actually just the icing on the cake. They purchase wind power to make up the difference. New employees are given a bicycle to encourage them to bike to work. It's a very progressive place. It's great to see brewers around the country embracing a wide array of green techs (Sierra Nevada as a couple of pretty large Solid Oxide Fuel Cells that they use in a similar fashion to New Belgium's micro turbine. SOFCs are more efficient thought, about 65% I think).

[jayman]

There are plenty of useful bacteria and enzymes out there, we only have to take advantage of them.

As an example, there are aerobic bacteria that "eat" diesel and gasoline. At one time, an area that contained leaky underground storage tanks was considered forever ruined.

With a suitable air sparge - to introduce plenty of air to assist the bacteria - and vapor extraction (To prevent explosions), not only can a sizable amount of product be recovered, but the soil can be remediated. In some cases, additional thermal treatment is required

This isn't a cheap process, but is better than the old practise of "abandon in place."