Academia Spotlight, Issue 3 - Biodegradable plastics made from bacteria
Promoting academia work in Steemit
A review of academic blog entries posted by @coinbitgold, who is using all Steem Dollars from my #academiaspotlight upvotes to promote Steemit to Scientists, Economists, Engineers, Mathematicians in academia. All steem dollars from this post will go to author and reviewer for thanking their contribution to steemit #academia! The #academiaspotlight is an initiative by #pevo team.
1st issue @ben.zimmerman
2nd issue @justtryme90
Welcome to the 3rd issue of #academiaspotlight!
Post: https://steemit.com/science/@valenttina/know-the-bacteria-that-may-end-with-plastic-pollution
Author: @valenttina
Reviewer: @coinbitgold
I am doing something special for this issue. Instead of casting PhD and post doc steemians, I am casting a student who is studying Chemical Engineering in Columbia. Let me introduce you to @valenttina!
Reason being that I find her interesting enough to have interest in both Chemical Engineering and poetry! From her introduction here. She even took the initiative to translate the steemit white paper to Spanish and posted here! Unfortunately, not many steemians notice it. Let's look at what she has posted and what i learnt from her post!
Importance of Bacteria studies
The first impression of bacteria for layman is that it is bad, it is dirty and most importantly, it makes us sick with all kinds of bacteria infection. That's why we have all kinds of anti-bacteria wash soap, detergent and what-not. But what we do also know is that there is always the good bacteria. One example of a good bacteria is the well known lactobacillus which is present in prebiotics supplements to protect our digestive system. Turns out that bacteria studies is not just about human health, it can lead to other practical applications such as biofuel production, oil spill remediations, etc! Read Sciencedaily link to catch news and other applications of bacteria. If you are blogging in #science, It might become an inspiration for your next steemit post!
Now, from @valenttina post, i got to know that apparently, a bacteria called Ralstonia eutropha found a new application in materials fabrication - biodegradable plastics!
PHA(Polyhydroxyalkanoates) made from Ralstonia eutropha
PHA is extracted from the bacteria and purified in a fermentation process. It is then used as a raw material for making biodegradable plastic bags, disposable cutleries, etc. Due to its biogenic nature, this means that they may be potentially "greener" than fossil fuel based plastic bags since they biodegrade faster. However, the high production costs of using such fermentation process when compared to fossil fuel based raw materials is hindering the process to reach industrial scale. Hence, we have not seen a major replacement of fossil fuel based plastic bag with biodegradable PHA plastic bags in the market. Guess we can look forward to more scientists trying to solve this cost issue in future!
She will be writing in her field of chemical engineering, environmental applications, poetry and her life in general. I wish all the best to @valenttina and look forward to her future blog entries. So follow @valenttina if you are interested to learn more on chemical engineering and how it helps in the environment! Half of steam dollars from this post will go to @valenttina for thanking her contribution to steemit #academia #science.
We hope that you have learnt something from this post. We also welcome any feedback on #academiaspotlight. Please let us know if you found posts which are academic in nature which have not received as much love and we may add them to the next issue.
Stay tuned and watch out for #academiaspotlight issue 4!
Very nice post, and a great poster to get the word out on! Hopefully some people also go back and reward her a bit for her contributions as well. Upvotes are encouragement!
Thanks for support always!
I'm really thankful with you for boosting my post. And yes, that's the point, keep on research to make of biodegradable plastics something massive and put them into the market field. Thanks a lot!
A very impressive article. This is my first read on this site after signing up and thanks for the great impression. Keep it up and all the best
Thanks for joining steemit! Feel free to mingle around and join steemit.chat to interact with steemians. There is a #science channel to network and chat :-)
Oh, thanks for the reply. Glad to know there is help. Feels warm for sure.
Cool that you are boosting other's deserving content cool that we are making headway in our sciences, although biology and chemistry are my weaknesses :p
Thank you! ahah. Will be diversifying my posts soon! watch out for it :-)
Very interesting article. I am looking forward for more engineering technique posts.
Thanks to @valenttina for her write-up and to @coinbitgold for promoting science on steemit :)
Thanks for your support always :-)
How exactly do we let you know if we want to nominate posts for #academiaspotlight? In the comments section?
You can message me at steemit.chat. @coinbitgold Sorry should have made it clearer
Will do. Thanks.
What a fantastic prmotional idea! It's fine to get the light hearted entertaining posts as we do but I was thinking recently about Steemit becoming a source of knowledge as well. This is certainly a step in the right direction! Good job, coinbitgold!
Thank you!
nice work @valenttina.. we need those plastics production soon..
beautiful step in the right direction, but econmics of scale is a roadblock. Fermentation techniques might have to be improved before the throughputs are economically feasible to compete with conventional polymerisation.
Indeed, conventional polymerization technology has matured and has achieved economy of scale. New technologies still need to catch up
Wow! The future truely IS now! Thank you for this insight #steemteam power!
hi! What is #steemteam??