Turning Soldier’s Trash into BioFuel

I’m in the terminal at Logan with way, way too much time on my hands. I thought I should get here early, but this is ridiculous! So I’ve finished the NY Times, and there are many stories that are worth sharing. First was a piece by Matthew Wald about a plastic wrapper being developed that could be turned into biodiesel fuel after use. The Pentagon calls it the Mobile Integrated Sustainable Energy Recovery Program.

Soldiers in combat use about seven pounds of disposable plastics and paper a day. Dr. Richard Gross, from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, has developed ‘bioplastic’, made from vegetable oils, that can be easily broken down using an enzyme they turn into fuel. “The trick is take a class of chemicals in the oil called fatty acids, from soy oil or another crop source, and alter them so that they have the chemical equivalent of a ‘hook’ at one end. Then they can be linked into long chains, a building block of plastics. Add cross-links that run from chain to chain, and the plastic goes from a film to a rigid material.

“Converting the soy oil to fatty acid is also done with an enzyme. A gene-altered yeast does that job. Jeremy Mishull, the president of DNA 2.0, said yeast was chosen because that conversion takes energy, and the yeast will provide that when fed cheap food.”