Waste oil cuts cost of bioplastics
3 Sep 2012
‘Bioplastics’ that are naturally synthesised by microbes could be made commercially viable by using waste cooking oil as a starting material, according to researchers at the University of Wolverhampton.
Poly 3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is the most commonly produced polymer in the PHA family. But currently growing bacteria in large fermenters to produce high quantities of this bioplastic is expensive because glucose is used as a starting material.
“Our bioplastic-producing bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha H16, grew much better in oil over 48 hours and consequently produced three times more PHB than when it was grown in glucose,” explained Victor Irorere who carried out the research.
“Electrospinning experiments, performed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, showed that nanofibres of the plastic produced from oils were also less crystalline, which means the plastic is more suited to medical applications.”
Previous research has shown that PHB is an attractive polymer for use as a microcapsule for effective drug delivery in cancer therapy and also as medical implants, due to its biodegradability and non-toxic properties.
Improved quality of PHB combined with low production costs would enable it to be used more widely.
The next challenge for the group is to do appropriate scale-up experiments, to enable the manufacture of bioplastics on an industrial level.
