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This biotech startup uses methane-eating bacteria to create fully biodegradable polymers.
Mango Materials is a biotech startup from San Francisco that has come up with an ingenious method for transforming methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into plastic. The process involves feeding methane to bacteria, which then produce a biodegradable polymer (polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA). This polymer can be spun into polyester fabric and used for clothing, carpets, and possibly packaging, although the company is most focused on the garment industry right now.
The methane used by Mango Materials comes from a waste treatment plant in the Bay Area, but the company is looking at partnering with other sources of methane, such as dairy farms, in order to get more. The technology creates value for methane, which is a novel idea.
How long would it take to fart a sweater — are we talking one burrito, or two?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)
The hemp plant is also very good at sequestering carbon. I like the feel of the few items of clothes I have that are made from hemp somewhat better than cotton, not that cotton isn't bad. Also, the cured skins of other mammals, especially with the insulating hairs intact, make for very excellent outerwear: durable and superb protection from the elements.
Also algae can be used to store energy from the local star in a stable, liquid form, amenable to transportation, that small engines can then extract with combustion, completing the carbon cycle and ensuring that more energy from the local star may be harvested into liquid form by future generations.
What do these idiot humans do? They to reinvent the wheel, poorly. Polyester and stellar+batteries. Talk about NIH syndrome! Then they get all superstitious about fur and refuse to select and domesticate (thus ensuring that species' survival as long as these humans survive) a mammal species with good qualities.
As for TFS, I have a pet peeve. The clothes aren't made from methane, dipshits! There is this process called "chemistry" that may be employed to change one substance into another substance with quite different properties. The planetary goddess has been hard at work for over a billion years figuring this all out for you! You'd know that if you had availed yourself of the educational material provided at the K-12 daycare service you unevolved sacks of shit! /rant at TFS
Would that the neanderthals and denisovans had survived instead of this violent, stupid, greedy species. Alas.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:07PM
You didn't mention that the fiber is more durable than any traditional fiber.
...or that hemp grows faster than any other fiber crop.
...or that hemp will grow damned near anywhere.
...and that at one time farmers were encouraged to grow it [google.com] (before the racist anti-drug laws, starting in 1937--where the name of the stuff they were vilifying they didn't even spell properly).
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 [wikipedia.org]
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