Turning Plastic into Food, Growing bigger Potatoes and saving Historic Art
September 2
This week we will investigate a new method for turning waste plastic into food and a new method for growing bigger potatoes. Neither sounds particularly enticing however it is early days in the research and increasing our food supply is critical to our ability to feed the projected 10 Billion people that will one day live on this planet. We also discover a new use for graphene that may protect the world’s historic art masterpieces. Finally we examine an electric, fully autonomous cargo ship from Norway.
Plastic into Protein
We currently have a problem with plastics. We use them for a wide range of everyday applications and the waste is piling up. Systems to turn plastic into fuel have been around for a few years however they have not solved the problem of plastic waste.
A team from the University of Illinois and Michigan Technological University have recently won a 1 million euro prize for their food generator concept that turns plastics into protein. The research was originally funded by DARPA (remember it was a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency challenge that launched self driving cars research in 2004).
The team looked at ways of using microbes to turn inedible biomass into safe and nutritious foods. The team discovered that by subjecting naturally occurring microbes to microbial synthetic engineering in which the gene circuits of the microbes are modified to result in different chemical reactions. These reactions can be used to turn the plastic waste into food proteins and other useful substances.
The next step is to enhance their “Food Generator” creation to produce more varied products including complex proteins such as amino acids, polyunsaturated fats and vitamins.
Big Potatoes
As the world’s population grows we will need more food to fill the billions. We can’t create any more land so one key to success is to increase the yield from our current farmland. A team from the University of Chicago have discovered that by augmenting potatoes with the human gene that encodes a fat-regulating protein (FTO) they were able to grow crops that were 50% larger. FTO alters the genetic code to rapidly mass produce proteins.
Plants do not have a protein comparable to FTO. Plant growth is regulated by a wide variety of genes. When FTO is added there is no genetic system in place to regulate the actions of the FTO. The plants just grow much bigger. The team has trialled the process on a number of plants including rice, trees and grass.
You will not find these super potatoes in the supermarket anytime soon. There are a huge range of safety studies to be undertaken prior to the product being declared fit for human consumption however it does show that there are likely many, as yet undiscovered, ways to improve the yield from farmlands. We need to decide which are ethical, safe and desirable before making them available for human consumption.
Saving Historic Art
One of the problems that museums and art galleries have is how to preserve the masterpieces of years gone by. There is a huge business in restoration and touching up the great works to save them from ruin. Science may have developed a better way.
Researchers from the University of Patras in Greece have developed a graphene coating that can be applied to art works and removed again without doing any damage to the surface of the work.
There are a number of culprits when it comes to degradation of art. Some oil paintings develop tiny pin sized blisters. Initially it was thought that these were grains of sand trapped in the paint. Chemists have concluded that the blisters are metal carboxylate soaps that result from a chemical reaction between metal ions in the lead and zinc pigments and fatty acids in the binding medium used in the paint. As the soaps clump together they form blisters and migrate through the paint film. Roughly 70% of all oil paintings have this deterioration.
Other causes of deterioration include exposure to light, which damages the lead chromate dyes favored by artists such as Van Gogh. The chromium in the yellow favored by Van Gogh reacts with barium and sulfur when exposed to sunlight. In 2020 “oxidative microbes” were discovered on some Renaissance era paintings.
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. It holds a number of properties that make it attractive for preserving art. It is transparent, adheres easily to various substrates and it serves as an excellent barrier against oxygen, gases and moisture. It is hydrophobic and it absorbs UV light.
A series of paintings by Matina Staropoulou were coated with graphene and then subjected to artificial aging via heat neon heat lamps for 1,050 hours. The portion of the paintings protected by graphene showed no signs of cracks or wrinkles after the aging process. The process may not be suitable for artworks with extremely rough surfaces or embossed patterns however a method for coating framing glass has been developed to provide a layer of protection.
Crewless Cargo Ship
We have spoken about self navigating ships previously. A Norwegian shipping line has recently launched what they claim is the world’s first zero emission autonomous cargo ship. The ship will make its’ maiden voyage between two Norwegian towns later this year.
The fully electric container ship was developed by chemical company Yara International. The ship will help to remove cargo from the road systems. The ship is capable of carrying 103 containers and has a top speed of 13 knots. Using a 7 MWh battery which is approximately 1000 times the capacity of a standard electric car. The ship is recharged at the dock during landing and unloading.
When the system is eventually combined with the many automated loading and unloading docks and automated trucking fleets being developed around the world we will have a commercial delivery system that will not need to be touched by human hands from factory to destination.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.
Sounds good, but is Turing plastic some sort of encryption software?