Inexhaustible raw materials DNA bioplastics have the potential for mass production

Recently, the team of Professor Yang Dayong of Tianjin University and the Research Institute of PetroChina petrochemicals have successfully developed a new type of DNA bioplastics, which are rich in raw materials, and the whole process of production, use and recycling are friendly and compatible with the ecological environment, and can be recycled with low energy consumption and lossless recovery, which is expected to replace petroleum-based plastics in some application fields. The results have been published in the authoritative journal Journal of the American Chemical Society.

About 1/3 of china's annual imported petroleum resources are used for synthetic plastic products, and the output and consumption of plastic processed products rank first in the world. However, the extraction process of plastic raw materials is highly energy-intensive and polluting, and a large number of greenhouse gases and chemical by-products are generated. Tens of millions of tons of plastic waste are currently being generated each year, and this number is increasing at an alarming rate.

The waste of large quantities of petroleum-based plastics is a huge waste of non-renewable resources and a significant exacerbation of the energy crisis. The development of recyclable bio-based plastics has become an effective means to solve plastic pollution and alleviate carbon emissions, especially the development of ecologically friendly plastics, which has become a research hotspot in academia and industry.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material of life, which is widely present in nature, and is an inexhaustible biological polymer. If a small fraction of DNA stored on Earth is converted into bioplastics, it could theoretically effectively alleviate the growing demand for plastic use.

Professor Yang Dayong's team has developed a new method for low-temperature processing to generate DNA bioplastics, and prepared a new type of DNA bioplastics that are compatible with the environment in the production, use and recycling process. "The raw materials for this plastic include natural DNA and ionospolymers, both derived from bio-renewable resources." Yang Dayong introduced that compared with the melt processing strategy of petroleum-based plastics, the processing energy consumption of this new DNA plastic is lower. The new DNA plastic can also be recycled through non-destructive recycling strategies to make new plastic products, and can also be controlled degradation under the action of DNase.

According to Professor Yang Dayong, the existing industrial equipment can quickly extract biomass DNA from plants, algae and bacteria, and the use of these devices can achieve an annual DNA output of hundreds of thousands of tons, and the new DNA plastic has great potential for mass production. At the same time, this plastic has excellent foldability and low temperature stability, and can be processed into multi-chamber microstructures, which is expected to play an important role in biomedical fields such as biosensing, drug delivery and tissue engineering.

He Shengbao, president of the PetroChina Petrochemical Research Institute, said that China National Petroleum Corporation has incorporated "green and low carbon" into the company's development strategy, and in order to achieve the goal of building a "low-carbon energy ecosystem", the PetroChina Petrochemical Research Institute has established the Institute of Hydrogen Energy, Biochemical and New Materials, aiming to explore subversive new energy and new materials to cope with the arrival of a new round of global industrial revolution and the increasingly severe environmental energy crisis. The DNA bioplastics developed in cooperation with Tianjin University this time are one of the innovative achievements in this field and are of great significance for building a low-carbon circular development economic system.

Reporter Chen Xi Correspondent Jiao Defang

Source: Science and Technology Daily