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Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are winners of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair for creating a plastic that can be infinitely recycled.
The question
Can you design a new type of plastic that can be recycled forever and is actually superior to traditional plastic created with fossil fuels?
The results
Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also known as the Berkeley Lab, have managed to create a new type of plastic without using petrochemicals. They named their invention polydiketoenamine, or PDK, and it’s manufactured using a rather peculiar factory: the bacteria E. coli. Yes, the same germ that can give people the runs.
© Vicky Leta/Gizmodo E. coli served a very different purpose in this project, though. As explained by Brett Helms, a staff scientist at the Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry division who led the project, the team developed a gene that introduces a new protein inside the E. coli that converts some of the molecules naturally found in the bacteria into monomers for PDK. Monomers are the building blocks of plastic, which then link together to make polymers.
Unlike plastics made from fossil fuels, which are hard to recycle and generally can’t be recycled more than once, the group says PDK can be recycled forever. In addition, the researchers found that PDK outperformed plastic made from fossil fuels when it came to heat resistance. PDK’s working temperature range was up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius).
Corinne Scown, a member of the project who is part of Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area, said the research laid the groundwork for a plastic that could be fine-tuned.
“It’s a whole platform for making materials that could be even better than what we can make from petrochemicals today,” Scown said.
Why they did it
Helms, Scown, and the rest of their team at the Berkeley Lab have been working on their infinitely recyclable plastic for years. The team was inspired to create their own plastic after learning about how hard it was to recycle plastic made from petrochemicals and how little was being recycled. They were also concerned about the effects of plastic waste on human health and the environment.
“I think we are only just now scratching the surface in terms of understanding what this make-take-discard approach to plastics is doing to the environment. Think about how much we’ve learned about microplastics and PFAS just in the last few years,” Scown said. “We have to move in the direction of circularity, because otherwise these materials will keep accumulating in landfills and leaking into the environment.”
A GIF demonstrating how PDK plastic breaks down in an acidic solution, with the acid separating resin monomers from chemical additives, allowing the monomers to be fully reused in new products. Image: Peter Christensen/ Berkeley Lab Why they’re a winner
Petrochemical plastic accounts for 99% of plastic produced worldwide. Recycling this type of plastic currently requires thorough sorting, because different types of plastic can’t be recycled together. As noted by a recent report from the Center for Climate Integrity, even items made from the same single type of plastic often can’t be recycled together because they feature different additives, such colors. It’s a lot cheaper to produce new, virgin plastic made from petrochemicals than to recycle it.
Given how hard it is to recycle plastic, what we’re left with is hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste. On a global scale, humans produce about 400 million tons of plastic waste per year. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that 7 billion tons of plastic waste has already been produced, of which only about 10% has been recycled. And while it’s easy to say that humans should just stop using plastic, the material has become ingrained into the very fabric of society and our lives. As such, a plastic that can truly be recycled and reused forever would have huge implications if it’s rolled out at scale.
What’s next
Helms and Scown co-founded a startup along with another of their project partners, Berkeley Lab’s Jay Keasling, called Cyklos Materials. The company is commercializing the infinitely recyclable plastic technology and aims to act as a counterpart to mainstream petroleum-based plastics. According to Helms, the company expects to begin providing samples of products made from PDK plastic within the next year and begin product roll-out in about three years.
The team has received interest from product designers at brands that are eager to learn if their material is ready to be used in production. In addition, they’ve attracted the eye of chemical companies that currently produce plastic, which are on the lookout for new commercial opportunities.
However, just because they’re ready to show their technology to the world doesn’t mean the researchers have stopped focusing on advancing the science of plastic reuse and recycling. In early April, Helms coauthored a new study that used different types of MRI methods to reveal plastics undergoing deconstruction. “We’re using the recycling process itself to inform how a material should be made up so it can be as efficiently recycled as possible,” Helms said.
The team
Helms, Scown, and Keasling of the Berkeley Lab served as the project’s leads. The research was a collaboration between three institutes at Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: the Molecular Foundry, the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), and the Advanced Light Source.
Click here to see all of the winners of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair.
