The Group of Biotransformation from the School of Microbiology of the University of Antioquia in Colombia is doing the research.
The thread used to stitch a wound may be produced with a biopolymer, i.e. a fibre made from microorganisms that act on agro-industrial residues such as sour cassava or bananas that are thrown away. Thus, it is safer that the surgical thread be biocompatible because, being a biological product it's close to how the human body works. Since it's biodegradable, the body would easily absorb it.
As unreal as it seems, it's one of the research developments in which the Group of Biotransformation from the School of Microbiology of the University of Antioquia is working on. Their interest is to generate cheap, effective, environmentally friendly solutions that could replace tons of the plastic that is used every day in many industrial and daily products.
An example is the use of banana and sour cassava waste, products in abundance in the banana region of Antioquia. There, thanks to work done by Mariana Cardona, a professor linked to the Institute of Microbiology, for her masters degree, it's been possible to use the bacterium Ralstonia euthopha to produce a biopolymer.
The project, supported by the Technology Management Program and the Vice Presidency of Research, includes applying the same principle to other substrates such as vinasses or the residues of the ethanol industry, which are daily used in liquor factories. Additionally, other investigations are seeking to produce biopolymers from the residues from biodiesel.
"Trying to reuse the agricultural industry's waste to produce these materials, which have multiple applications, is a big and promising enterprise," said the PhD in engineering and coordinator of the biopolymers line of Group of Biotransformation from the School of Microbiology, Lina María Escobar Agudelo.
Agudelo explained that some microorganisms under specific conditions could take advantage a source of carbon, such as sugar, to transform it into a polymer material and accumulated within themselves. It is then recovered and transformed obtaining a biopolymer with a particular application because, depending on the microorganism and the carbon source used, one can get a wide variety of materials.
Applied Biotechnology
According to Agudelo, the group works the line of biopolymers, seeking the production of materials with properties such as polyester, that may have the potential of being used to manufacture disposable cups, bags and other items that are currently produced with plastics conventionally derived from petroleum.
"What we are trying to do to create a polymeric material from renewable raw materials and microorganisms by biotechnological processes such as fermentation, that could have the potential to replace the plastic produced from petroleum." The impact is huge when you consider that a glass made with biopolymer can degrade quickly in the environment, in a span of less than a year, in contrast to the estimated 10 to 500 years it takes a traditional disposable cup to decompose.
Other advantages include a reduction in pollutants and that biopolymers can affect favourably to the effects of climate change, especially because of how they are produced and how they can easily biodegrade.
Day by day there are greater legislative requirements regarding the topic of recycling and a greater awareness of consumers towards the components and the recyclability of the products they buy. In a world where 50 percent of the materials are plastics and almost everything there is has plastic "the challenge is to produce a material that has the same versatility and offers the same advantages of plastic, but that is less polluting," said Agudelo.
Biopolymers are green products, because their life cycle is closed, their production increases the use of renewable natural resources in an ethical manner, using only waste to transform it into useful products that can replace many existing products found in the market. At the end of their useful life, biopolymers degrade and their components are recycled by nature.
This is a wonderful universe if you consider that there are about 300 microorganisms with the potential to produce about 150 types of different polymeric structures, and each one is unique and can offer multiple alternatives to the market.
The research group that performs all of the BioProcess has studied these biopolymers under the applied biotechnology approach since 2009 at the University of Antioquia. The goal is to decrease production costs of the biopolymer, improving all stages of the process. To do this they have been working with renewable and less expensive raw materials, such as the agro-industrial waste; with the most producing strains; in more favourable operating conditions of temperature, aeration, agitation, among others, and also in the improvement of the retrieval of the material.
"We develop processes that are feasible in the industry. The goal is to improve all stages of the process to obtain a sufficient amount of biopolymer to be able, in some proportion, to replace the current demand of plastics," she said.
The philosophy of the research group is articulating the interdisciplinary work among microbiologists, biotechnologists and engineers to generate applied biotechnological developments that can be implemented on an industrial scale and offer alternative solutions to problems of great social impact.
Source: UDEA/DICYT
