Bacteria Ready to Make Plastic From Sugar

Sept. 26, 2008 -- Claims of biology-based oil and plastic usually bear the caveat "in five years." But a San Diego-based company claims they will have a pilot plant for production of E. coli-based 1,4 butanediol (BDO), the base chemical for plastic products ranging from Spandex to car bumpers, next year.

"We are able to couple the growth of the organism to the production of BDO," said Christophe Schilling, co-founder of the company, Genomatica. "For the bacteria to grow they have to produce BDO."

The announcement holds particular promise amid rising oil prices and a scramble to replace petroleum-based ingredients with renewable ones.

Traditionally, BDO is made from oil and natural gas through an energy-intensive process. Genomatica, founded in 2000, says their technology can significantly reduce the cost of making BDO. All they need is sugar and a particular bacterium.

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The specific cost saving will vary by company, but Chris Gann, Genomatica's CEO, says that, "if the price of oil dropped to $50 per barrel [our technology] would still be competitive." The price for a barrel of oil earlier this week was about $120.

That savings in cost comes from using cheaper raw materials and less energy to trigger the chemical reactions necessary to turn oil into plastic, Gann said.

Using computer-aided design (CAD) software similar to what engineers have used for years, Genomatica scientists simulated various chemical reactions to find the best genes for the job.

Schilling won't say from which specific organisms they got the proteins and enzymes used to turn sugar into BDO, other than that they culled them from a computer database of "hundreds of microorganisms," some obscure, some commonplace.

Once Genomatica scientists had a working virtual E. coli, they spliced the selected genes into the real E. coli and turned them loose on raw cane sugar.

So far, Genomatica has produced less than two pounds of BDO. To create industry-scale amounts of BDO, cane sugar, E. coli and water will go into 105-degree (Fahrenheit) fermentation tanks, like the ones used to produce ethanol.