This will ultimately be huge. This may be a natural substitute for a
wide range of products we presently make from plastic. It will be an
important feedstock that can even be produced down on the farm as a
matter of course. It will still need consumables and farms are used
to dealing with this sort of stuff.
This is an important breakthrough and a nice result of genetic
engineering that no one eats.
We will see it enter the supply chain in perhaps five years and that
will produce a flood of replacement solutions hopefully broadly
across industry. That will depend on cost and cost issues often
delay market expansion for years and even decades.
Super-strong
‘wonder material’ is made with just algae, water, and sunlight
By Sarah Laskow
Nanocellulose could,
in theory, be the miracle material that solves humanity’s every
problem. It’s derived from cellulose, the stuff that’s found in
plants, but its extra-tiny nano-scale fibers give it superpowers,
like incredible strength. Here are just a few of the things you could
make with it:
- a boat that can carry 1,000 pounds of cargo
- bulletproof glass
- wound dressings
- electronic wallpaper
Scientists have been
trying for decades to figure out how to make nanocellulose
efficiently. And now, one team of scientists has announced that
they’ve genetically engineered algae to produce it. That means that
all that’s required is sunlight, water, and a whole bunch of algae.
This team had been
working for years with a bacterium — the same one used in kombucha
— that was able to manufacture nanocellulose out of wood pulp. But
that was a resource-intensive process, involving large vats of
bacteria that needed large amounts of food. Recently, though, they
started working with algae, which can produce its own nourishment
through photosynthesis. They took genes from the first type of
bacterium, threw it into the algae, and — voila! — it produced
nanocellulose. The Verge explains:
By genetically
engineering vinegar bacterium into blue-green algae, Brown’s lab
has effectively created organic factories capable of making
nanocellulose on a potentially industrial scale. …
Brown’s lab is still
“five to ten years” away from adapting the process to a large
scale, though he says the science behind it is sound. All they need
now, the professor explains, is broader awareness and momentum.
Also, a whole lot of
algae. And the space to grow it in. And to keep people from not
freaking out about genetic-freak algae. If it gets too controversial,
though, it should be easy enough to protect the algae from
protesters: They can, after all, manufacture bulletproof glass from
sunlight.
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