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Researcher Brian Mooney
is working to replace petroleum-based plastics with those
made from a non-polluting, renewable resource from plants.
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Plastic
From Plants
Could Help Environment
Biodegradable plastic from plants
could be a billion-dollar industry.
By Jason Jenkins
Double-cropping isn’t a new idea in
agriculture, but producing plastic in plants as a value-added
commodity would give new meaning to the concept for Missouri farmers,
said a University of Missouri researcher.
Since 2000, Brian Mooney, an MU research assistant
professor of biochemistry,
has worked to enhance a system of agricultural plastic production
that would create new market opportunities for commodities, such
as corn and soybeans, while reducing plastic in landfills and
dependence on foreign oil.
“Each year, 25 million tons of plastic
end up in U.S. landfills,” he says. “If we can replace
some petroleum-based plastics with those made from a non-polluting,
renewable resource such as plants, we can reduce that number and
create new income for farmers.”
The plastic Mooney is attempting to produce
is polyhydroxybutyrate-valerate, or PHBV, which is similar to
the petroleum-based plastic, polypropylene.
“PHBV is flexible and moldable, and
could be used to produce a wide range of products, from grocery
bags and soda bottles to disposable razors and flatware,”
he says. “The advantage of PHBV is that it’s 100 percent
biodegradable. When discarded, bacteria that naturally occur in
the soil chew it up and turn it into water and carbon dioxide.”
In the mid-1990s, Monsanto Corp. successfully
produced PHBV in plants, which the company called BIOPOL, Mooney
says. “But they were only able to produce it in small quantities,
about 3 percent dry weight. In order to be commercially viable,
14 percent or more is considered the threshold.”
Mooney seeks to break this threshold by designing
plants that produce the raw materials for PHBV within leaf cells.
“There are five enzymes, two from the
plant and three from bacteria, that when combined produce PHBV,”
he says. “Of the two plant enzymes, one is currently produced
in the mitochondria. Our goal is to modify the plant so that this
enzyme is instead diverted to the chloroplasts. Once that’s
achieved, bacterial enzymes can be introduced to produce PHBV
in the chloroplasts.”
Laboratory experiments show the mitochondrial
enzyme can be diverted to the chloroplasts, Mooney said. The next
step is to use the model plant, Arabidopsis, to confirm the system
works in plants.
“We anticipate the first plants will be produced in the
next 6 to 12 months,” Mooney says. “At that point,
we’ll analyze the expression of the enzymes, and if they’re
sufficient, we’ll be ready to move on to the next step.”
For farmers, PHBV could become an additional
agricultural commodity, creating a double crop in one plant, he
says. “Whether in corn or soybeans, the plants would be
designed to produce the PHBV plastic in the leaves only, leaving
the seeds unchanged. Monsanto studies from the ’90s showed
that PHBV-producing plants grew normally and produced fertile
seeds.”
Mooney says biodegradable plastics have the
potential to be a $1 billion per year industry in the United States.
A grant from the Consortium
of Plant Biotechnology Research, a non-profit partnership
between research universities and private industry, currently
funds the project.
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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