"Engineer Biomass Waste to End Microplastic"

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[19:48] RL: "We are solving a problem that happens every single day to everybody, but we don't talk enough about, which is microplastic, [...] [focussing on] detergent and laundry pods, [...] [that] are made from a synthetic plastic polymer called PVA, polyvinyl alcohol. [...] 20 billion of these pods are produced in the US every single year, and 8,000 tons are just flowing into the ocean. Our solution is to replace these microplastics [...] [with] biodegradable and water soluble resins that are good for the environment and leave no microplastic whatsoever."

[21:41] RL: "We are upcycling beer waste from beer manufacturers such as Anheuser Busch InBev. And we are converting their beer waste into a biobased polymer that can be made from the bacteria."

[23:04] RL: "There are essentially three parts of our technology. One is the extraction and purification of polymer from these agricultural waste. The second part is designing the bacteria. And then the third part is downstream processing like fermentation, modification, and then making them into final resins."

[24:29] RL: "The entire application of the PVA material that we try to replace has a commercial value of $25 billion as of today, which is massive."

Rating: ☁️☁️☁️