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Bioplastics

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Mechanically Tunable, Compostable, Healable and Scalable Engineered Living Materials.

Avinash Manjula-Basavanna^1,2,3, Anna M Duraj-Thatte⁴, Neel S Joshi⁵

¹Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. mbavinash@northeastern.edu.

Nature Communications

|November 12, 2024

Summary

Engineered living materials were developed with tunable properties, offering compostability, healability, and scalability. This novel material mimics plastic and paper, providing a sustainable alternative for packaging.

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Biotechnology
Chemical Engineering

Background:

Engineered living materials (ELMs) offer unique properties but require advanced design for practical applications.
Key desired attributes include biodegradability, manufacturability, sustainability, and tunable functionality.
Current ELMs often lack the mechanical robustness and processability needed for widespread adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a mechanically engineered living material (MELM) with integrated compostability, healability, and scalability.
To create a material exhibiting plastic-like stretchability and paper-like characteristics.
To demonstrate tunable mechanical properties and efficient biodegradation.

Main Methods:

Culturing bacterial biomass (40%) incorporating engineered curli protein nanofibers.
Tuning mechanical properties like elongation at break (1-160%) and Young's modulus (6-450 MPa).
Implementing genetically encoded covalent crosslinking of curli nanofibers to enhance mechanical strength.

Main Results:

Production of a novel plastic/paper-like material in scalable quantities (0.5-1 g L⁻¹).
Achieved significant tunability in mechanical properties, spanning two orders of magnitude.
Demonstrated complete biodegradation within 15-75 days.
Increased Young's modulus twofold through genetic crosslinking.

Conclusions:

The developed MELM integrates compostability, healability, and scalability, addressing key design challenges.
Mechanical properties are comparable to petrochemical plastics, suggesting potential for primary packaging applications.
This work advances the field of ELMs towards sustainable and functional material solutions.