This finding can help significantly reduce environmental contamination

Sep 4, 2012 06:56 GMT  ·  By

A team of scientists working with the University of Wolverhampton, UK, now claim to have discovered a way to use waste oil in order to produce bioplastics.

As they explain, their finding yields two major benefits: firstly, contamination of natural ecosystem is to be significantly diminished; secondly, medical sciences could be provided with high-quality plastics, which can be used to design and manufacture medical implants.

While discussing their research, during the latest Autumn Conference for the Society for General Microbiology, the scientists pointed out that the decision to come up with this alternative solution for producing bioplastics stemmed from the fact that the glucose so far used as a starting material is rather expensive, and therefore not suitable for large-scale production.

To cut a long story short: PHA (i.e. linear polyesters that are biodegradable and therefore can be used in the production of bioplastics) are the result of a bacterial fermentation of sugar or lipids. Presently, the bacteria chosen for the completion of this process is grown in glucose.

However, switching to waste oil instead supposedly leads to better results, both from a financial standpoint, and as far as the efficiency of the entire process is concerned.

As reported on E! Science News, Victor Irorere, the researcher in charge of overseeing this study, explained how, “Our bioplastic-producing bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha H16, grew much better in oil over 48 hours and consequently produced three times more PHB [i.e. the most common of the aforementioned PHAs] than when it was grown in glucose.”

Furthermore, “Electrospinning experiments, performed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, showed that nanofibers of the plastic produced from oils were also less crystalline, which means the plastic is more suited to medical applications.”

Seeing how getting rid of waste plastics without negatively impacting on the natural world is one of the major issues our society is presently facing, it comes as good news that biodegradable alternatives for our run-of-the-mill packaging, shopping bags and the like might soon come are way.