Hey all! Hope your having a happy and healthy day!!
So, Iām not a tech person by trade, Iām a botanist. Ironically, some of the best base base science and tech for the technology sector will be coming out of biologyāspecifically botany. The best example of this so far is the advances that will be made soon in quantum computing from advances in biologyāwe found an algae that does it at room temperature during photosynthesis. Observing this phenomena could provide the road map to making particles stay in quantum states at room temp, as opposed to like -200.
Anyway, thatāt not why Iām writing here. I know fairphone is very new, and I know you have a long way to go as far as capital accrual goes before you start doing r&d. However, whenever you do get the money for big r&d projects I think one of the first should be figuring out how to make bioplastics which can be injection molded, and then replacing all the plastics in your phones and cases with themāespecially cases!
The main challenge of this right now is figuring out how to create a aqueous solution that not only allows the mushroom/yeast/bacteria to colonize it, but also has some sort of substrate incorporated into it for the biotic agent to colonize and turn into bioplastic. This isnāt something thatās been done to my knowledge, but given the proper capital, itās something thatās totally doable too. I could already make a pretty decent leather flip case out of mushroom plastics, if I had access to a vacuum forming machine or a few clear molds specād out right. Would be thick, and it may be ugly, but would be stupid easy.
Anyway, I know this is very big picture and a long way off, but I figure yāall should know about this type of tech if you donāt already. After all, what could be better than having electronicsānot just cell phonesāthat you can fix yourself, where most or all of the plastics are not only renewable because they were grown, but are also completely biodegradable?!
Thanks! Iāll have to do that sometime. Do you know if itās possible to print in plastic that is completely clear to the eye? Iāve never really done 3D printing, though Iām sure I could go to a hacker or maker space and learnā¦
Personally, Iām very, very critical towards biodegradable plastics.
Bio based plastics are very interesting as a way to replace oil as a resource. But bio degradable plastics (not all biobased plastics are biodegradable!) are a complete waste of energy.
Think of it: you grow your resources. Of course, you need energy for that. Next, you convert them into plastics. Here too, we need energy. You make a product out of it, use it and at end-of-lifeā¦ It degrades into CO2, methane, water and some biomass. None of these resources are easy to use in making a new product.
I would much more prefer biobased, recyclable plastics. Those materials can be used again and again until the molecules are too damaged to be recycled any moreā¦
Or, if recycling is not possible, materials should be āhome-compostableā. Biodegradable and ācompostableā materials wonāt degrade in your garden composting, which is often misunderstood. Home compostable materials will produce compost, which in turn can be used to grow new resources to make new bio-based plastics. Itās more wasteful of resources and energy than recycling is, but still more preferable over biodegradation, I think.
Bio based plastics are very interesting as a way to replace oil as a resource. But bio degradable plastics (not all biobased plastics are biodegradable!) are a complete waste of energy.
Think of it: you grow your resources. Of course, you need energy for that. Next, you convert them into plastics. Here too, we need energy. You make a product out of it, use it and at end-of-lifeā¦ It degrades into CO2, methane, water and some biomass. None of these resources are easy to use in making a new product.>
uhhhhh, bio based plastics are bioplasicsāthey are the same thing. All a bioplastic is is a plastic derived from a renewable biomass source.
biodegradable plastics are what we want, because they biodegrade. This way when people litter, or dump trash, it will biodegrade, as opposed to leaching endochrin disruptor and plastic micro fibrils into our waterāthe present situation.
Growing mushrooms actually takes very little energyāthis is a mushroom technology Iām talking about using. Also, there are yeast and bacterial based ones that require almost no energy. In fact, I could do it with just sunlight if I wanted. Your right that it takes a lot of energy, but itās biological energy, not energy we have to spend watts to produce.
There is no conversion of something into plastics. Again, your simply inoculating a media, which is from recycled sources.
it degrades into co2 methane and water, which is then stored in the soil until something comes along and messes it up. Again, this is the best part of this technology.
Itās actually incredibly easy for me to make co2 and methane from biodegraded plastics back into your cell phone case. All Iād have to do is grow some food in the biodegraded soil, dry and grind the plant parts Iām not eating, and use them as media. Itās stupidly easy now that I think about it, and could be done in like 4 months.
Again, it is totally recycled to begin with, far more than actual plastic, plus it doesnāt have estrogenic compounds in itā¦
Any biodegradable thing is compostable in my home compost pile, as long as I donāt screw up. If you keep it at 140 to 160 degrees for like 10 or 15 days everything breaks down. Thatās all theyāre doing in the commercial piles tooā¦
It uses far, far, far less energy dudeā¦ making plastics, and then things out of plastic is stupidly energy intensive by comparison. I could literally grow phone cases with the sun, and totally recycled material, with the exception of the mold for them, and the machinery to bake themāthough I could certainly use convection panels to create the heat.
The āresourcesā these mushrooms inoculate are from recycled sources. Ground up newspaper and magazines, sawdust, old fryer oil, etc. They are readily available, and it doesnāt cost any more energy to produce them, because we are making them either way.
āBioplasticsā is most often used to describe all sort of things: bio-based, compostable and/or bio-degradable. Thatās why I prefer to use the more specific terms.
You may have heard of the so-called āoxo-degradableā plastics. Those are neither biobased or compostable (and not even proved to be biodegradable), but since there is no clear definition of ābioplasticā, they sometimes claim itā¦
We donāt want people to litter or dump. In Belgium, we even forbade to put the claim ābiodegradableā on packaging, because we found out this encourages people to litter (they honestly think itās best for the environment)! Since biodegradation still takes a lot of time (when testing, it may take up to 24 months), the litter stays as visual pollution and thus attracts more littering if it is not cleaned up.
Who has a compost pile in his garden where the temperature is that high for at least 10 days in a row?? The claim āhome compostableā puts the temperature at 20-30 degrees during 6 months, which is a much more realistic concept.
I guess I didnāt completely get your process the first time. If I understand correctly, the mushroom is the material (and not, as most bio-based plastics: the mushroom/bacteria/ā¦ produces the plastic)? Do you have any indication on how fast this could be produced? Anything realistic for a company like Fairphone to produce on an industrial scale? Iām quite interested!
As a matter of speaking, I would avoid calling this material a bio-plastic. Plastics generally have a bad reputation, but this could be something very different.
Iāve had a plastic pen that degraded within my hands. It was originally white and became brownish after some months. Iām not convinced about biodegradable plastic for long-term goods like mobile phones.
One of the problems is the lack of official international recognised definitions
The EU has a standard on compostable packaging (EN 13432), so we have a definition for these. Work on a standard for home-compostable plastics is ongoing.
So far, following terms are commonly used:
Bioplastics: depending on who uses it, it means something else. Most commonly used for plastics that are both biobased and biodegradable. This term is often used in greenwashing.
Biobased: made from biomass sources.
Biodegradable: in theory, these should fall apart into CO2, methane, water and some biomass if left alone in the environment. It can take long (e.g. a test may take up to 24 months), but not as long as ānormalā plastics. This also causes controversy: a heavy branch is not biodegradable, because it takes too long to disappearā¦
Compostable: the material biodegrades and produces CO2, methane, water and compost. This is done in an industrial composting installation, where temperatures are constant (56-60Ā°C). For testing, the material has to be composted in 12 weeks.
Home-compostable: Not yet recognised internationally, but testing schemes exist (and Belgian legislation including kind of a standard). Here, the same rules apply as those for compostable materials. Only the temperature is lower (between 20-30Ā°C), since an outside compost heap will never reach the same temperatures as an industrial installation. The timing is also different: 12 months are allowed.
āBioplasticsā is most often used to describe all sort of things: bio-based, compostable and/or bio-degradable. Thatās why I prefer to use the more specific terms.
All a bioplastic really is is a āA type of biodegradable plastic derived from biological substances rather than petroleum.ā
So, if itās biodegradable, it replaces plastic, it doesnāt have petroleum in it and itās made with biological means, then itās a bioplastic.
We donāt want people to litter or dump. In Belgium, we even forbade to put the claim ābiodegradableā on packaging, because we found out this encourages people to litter (they honestly think itās best for the environment)! Since biodegradation still takes a lot of time (when testing, it may take up to 24 months), the litter stays as visual pollution and thus attracts more littering if it is not cleaned up.
In Americaāand probably a lot of other placesāpeople are going to litter either way. Putting biodegradable on it isnāt going to help or hurt, because most people donāt read labels. Those who do are smart enough to not just litter. The litter stays for decades here dude, 24 months would be a godsend to my city. Finding bottles and cans older than me is a common occurrence hereā¦
Who has a compost pile in his garden where the temperature is that high for at least 10 days in a row?? The claim āhome compostableā puts the temperature at 20-30 degrees during 6 months, which is a much more realistic concept.
Plenty of people, especially in the summer. All ya gotta do is save up lots of materials in the proper ratios, make a five foot by eight foot chicken wire ring, and make all your compost for the year in three weeksā¦ And itāll be much better, as itāll be properly decomposed, as opposed to being in various statesā¦ might be more of a pita, but people do it sometimes too.
Alsoāhere in Philly at leastāthe city already has a composting pile, and Iām sure it stays hot, its hugeā¦ So it could all just get thrown in there tooā¦
I guess I didnāt completely get your process the first time. If I understand correctly, the mushroom is the material (and not, as most bio-based plastics: the mushroom/bacteria/ā¦ produces the plastic)? Do you have any indication on how fast this could be produced? Anything realistic for a company like Fairphone to produce on an industrial scale? Iām quite interested!
As a matter of speaking, I would avoid calling this material a bio-plastic. Plastics generally have a bad reputation, but this could be something very different.
At first I was just gonna start by playing with this stuff and modeling, but eventually youād wanna come up with your own novelty strains probably. Theyāre all just various nolvety strains of mushrooms, grown on different media, in various conditions, to produce various specs.
the mycellium colonizes the media, consumes it, and then you bake it to kill the biology, shape it, paint it, and finish it with some sort of water protectant if needed. Thereās actually a material very similar to leather I was thinking I could skin it withāalso made from mycellium.
No, the mycellium is the plastic. dead interwoven hyphae. To the lay person, mushroom roots, though that is a bit of a missnomer.
So, to be clear, a bioplastic does not have any polymers derived from petroleum in it, by definition. Instead it uses biology to grow materials with very similar properties of plastics.
I have no idea how fast you could produce once scaled. And it for large scale production youād need lightingāmore energyābut I donāt think very much. I was envisioning a production model with lots of light tubes, or possibly just in hoop houses/hoop houses with shade clothes, so the lighting would only run for hours each day, and only during certain months. Production speeds could also be upped with lighting. I was planning to test how fast these things grow in the sun, on a window sill. I was also going to do one under a CFL bulb.
Biodegradable: in theory, these should fall apart into CO2, methane, water and some biomass if left alone in the environment. It can take long (e.g. a test may take up to 24 months), but not as long as ānormalā plastics. This also causes controversy: a heavy branch is not biodegradable, because it takes too long to disappearā¦
Biodegradable simply means capable of being broken down by biological agents. Plastic is not biodegradable because the only things that break it down are time or energy. Essentially, nothing eats plastic.
There is no time limit on how long something takes to biodegrade. The question of biodegradability has to do with how itās broken down, not how long it takes. Also it could break down into potassium, or phospherous, or zinc, or all sorts of other stuff. Bones break down into calcium and c02, with very little methane, for example.
A heavy branch is clearly biodegradable. It is broken down by fungusāmostlyāas well as some bacteria. Thatās absolutely biodegradation.
I think your going by some European standard for places that compost or something. Biodegradability in the plant and soil science world simply means it can be degraded by biologyā¦
Iāve had a plastic pen that degraded within my hands. It was originally white and became brownish after some months. Iām not convinced about biodegradable plastic for long-term goods like mobile phones.
Yeeeeea, they probably didnāt put any sort of water proof coating onto it. That stuff is pretty hydrophillic. They could wrapped it in this stuff and that wouldnāt happen, and itād look nicer, but itād cost a lot more too.
I think itās at the point it could make cases. That money could then be reinvested in some very complex R&D to come up with novelty strains of of biology that would be suitable for the outsides of the phones, and guts. Who knows, maybe we could even find one to replace silicon one dayā¦
Hey all! Hope your having a happy and healthy day!!
