The New Alchemy

Scientists are trialing transmutation for the modern age. No, not lead into gold, and no Philosopher’s stone is involved. A simple bacterium is proving to be an effective, yet peculiar agent in producing high-quality plastics ideally suitable for medical and disposable applications.

Previously, the bio-plastic PHB has been grown in glucose by microbes with disappointing results. However, trials using waste cooking oil instead of glucose as a raw material have shown a tripling in yield in the same time period. This is great news for the waste recycling industry and the environmental community, firstly because un-recycled waste oil can be a major hazard to freshwater wildlife, but secondly because PHB has very useful properties. This makes it suitable for use in a variety of applications and attractive to the polymer industry. Interestingly, some sources claim that PHB can be used as a component in bio-degradable sutures that do not need to be removed, but dissolve harmlessly.

Producing bio-polymers, such as PHB, in the past has been expensive due to the use of glucose as the feedstock. But given the relatively low-cost of waste cooking oil, the production process is not only more effective than with a Glucose feed-stock, but also much cheaper. This makes the production of PHB from waste cooking oil a breakthrough for the 21st century - environmentally friendly, but also economically viable.

This blog-post was inspired by an article posted here.