One of the researchers, Rima Ganaim explains: "The types of agricultural waste in Israel can reach enormous masses of millions of tons per year: animal excrement, carcasses from the meat industry, eggs and other industries, plant waste and waste generated from textile mills. All of these together produce a host of hazards that we would be happy to avoid and at the very least reduce them."
A new study led by researchers from Tel Aviv University offers a revolutionary method for turning agricultural waste into biodegradable bioplastic. The method may have many applications in agricultural engineering, biotechnology and treatment of pollutants. The research resulted from the initiative of doctoral student Rima Ganaim from the Department of Environmental Studies, a biodegradable plastics researcher under the guidance of Prof. Alexander Gulberg from the Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences and in collaboration with Prof. Michael Gozin and Dr. Jagadish Das from the School of Chemistry at the School of Exact Sciences. Other partners in the research are doctoral students Nabil Ganaim and Razan Younes, both from the Center for Regional R&D-Triangle in Kfar Kara and Tel Aviv University.
Agricultural waste is a sanitary and ecological nuisance that may cause serious damage. Many organic materials that are dumped in agricultural environments, attract large populations of predators such as jackals, and these in turn violate the delicate ecological balance in that agricultural environment - whether by predation of other animals, whether by causing damage to irrigation systems and, of course, by the transmission of diseases. Therefore, there is a growing need to find effective and sustainable solutions to the problem.
Rima Ganaim explains: "The various types of agricultural waste can reach enormous masses of millions of tons per year in the State of Israel alone. We are talking about animal excrement, carcasses from the meat industry, eggs and other industries, plant waste and waste generated from textile mills. All of these together produce a host of hazards that we would be happy to avoid and at least reduce them.
In the waste generated in the agricultural industry there is a sugar called mannitol, which is often used as an artificial sweetener and is also sometimes found in medicines. It turns out that when a bacterium called C.ampihlecti is grown on the surface of the mannitol substrate, a polymer called PHB is created in a biosynthetic process, and it is a biodegradable material that is relatively easy to handle."
The researchers say that the bacterium was isolated from a marine algae called Olba (also known as sea lettuce), while the mannitol itself (which naturally exists in agricultural waste) was experimentally extracted from natural leaves. The proposed method, the researchers hope, will dramatically reduce the existing production costs of biodegradable waste.
Ganaiim adds: "From a chemical point of view, the purpose of the synthetic process we performed is to simulate the proposed method. First, we extracted the mannitol from celery leaves and olive leaves, and created a liquid rich in this substance. Inside the liquid we grew a bacterial culture. After that, we extracted the biological polymer from the bacterial culture by dissolving it in a unique 'green' organic solvent. A spectroscopic analysis that we performed in the laboratory proved that this is indeed the long-awaited PHB."
The main limitation that exists today in regards to the production of PHB in large quantities is the high production cost. Apart from that, some of the processes used are not environmentally friendly, although they are effective. Prof. Gulberg explains that the new method is not only effective, but will also address these two major shortcomings - it will dramatically reduce production costs and also the use of the unique natural solvent in the process, making it quite 'green'.
Prof. Golberg and Prof. Gozin summarize: "From our point of view, there is a significant statement here that we must produce new raw materials from waste as much as possible. It is very important to emphasize that the solution that reduces pollution will not only come from the use of these biodegradable polymers, but also through reducing the consumption of plastic by each and every one of us. Here we emphasize that it is possible to both reduce waste and create useful biodegradable polymers in a process that is not harmful to the environment."
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One response
Any process coupling would be good. Agricultural waste is a huge pool of food that is thrown away because processes are not linked. From food for humans, to animals, to plants as compost to a growing medium and production of materials as described here. Instead of growing corn and extracting ethanol from it, efforts should be made to find an efficient way to use the agricultural waste for this purpose.