Discovery could ‘open the door’ for making plastic without fossil fuels
Scientists in the United States have made a discovery that could potentially lead to new ways to produce plastics without the use of fossil fuels.
The researchers have found a previously unknown way that some bacteria produce the chemical ethylene – a fundamental part of the plastic-making process.
Ethylene traditionally derives from fossil fuels and is widely used in the manufacturing of nearly all plastics.
The study, published in the journal Science, showed that ethylene gas was created by the bacteria as a by-product of metabolising sulfur – which they need to survive – using a process that could make it very valuable in manufacturing.
“We may have cracked a major technological barrier to producing a large amount of ethylene gas that could replace fossil fuel sources in making plastics,” said Justin North, a research scientist in microbiology at The Ohio State University and the study’s lead author.
“There’s still a lot of work to do to develop these strains of bacteria to produce industrially significant quantities of ethylene gas. But this opens the door.”
Currently, ethylene is created using oil or natural gas. Bacteria had previously been discovered that can also create ethylene, but the need for oxygen in that process provided a barrier to its production.
“Oxygen plus ethylene is explosive,” said Robert Tabita, professor of microbiology at Ohio State and senior author of the study – a collaboration with Colorado State University and two national laboratories.
“That is a major hurdle for using it in manufacturing, but the bacterial system we discovered to produce ethylene works without oxygen and that gives us a significant technological advantage.”
You can read a more detailed report on the research findings on the Ohio State University website.
