Difference between revisions of "Template:Groningen/Human Practices"

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<h1 id="carbonfootprint">Carbon Footprint Analysis</h1>
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<p>We are facing an huge increase in global population, from the current world population of f 7.6 billion to an expected 9.8 billion in 2050[<a target="_blank" href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-population-prospects-the-2017-revision.html">1</a>]. This projected increase in global population leads to an increase in both increased food and energy consumption, which in turn in is associated with the release of larger amounts of greenhouse gasses the atmosphere. Right now, we live in a plastic generation. The global production and consumption of plastics have been on the rise for over 50 years now, reaching a plastic consumption of 297.5 million tons by the end of 2015[<a target="_blank" href="http://www.worldwatch.org/global-plastic-production-rises-recycling-lags-0">2</a>]. Plastic products from the petrochemical industries have a high carbon footprint (Boonniteewanich et al,. 2014). The combination of global population increase and a mass consumed non-eco-friendly product, in the form of petroleum-based plastics, could be disastrous. This is one of the reasons that the Groningen iGEM team’s project attempts to produce (bio)styrene, a building block for many plastics, from cellulose as an alternative to substitute the petroleum-based styrene. In this section we have carried out a partial Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis to identify the environmental impact of both alternatives of petroleum-based styrene and bio-based styrene. The main purpose is to provide an insight of environmental burden that is caused by the worldwide styrene industry in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2-e) and to showcase our greener alternative. </p>
+
<h4> EV Biotech </h4>
 +
            <p>  
 +
The young, Groningen based biotech startup <a target="_blank" href="http://evbio.tech/">EV Biotech</a> offered to collaborate with us in many aspects. Represented by Linda Dijkshoorn, Agnieszka Wegryzn and Sergey Lunev, EVBiotech was present at multiple meetings with our subgroups. Linda had great tips about structure and organisation, and helped us to set up a SCRUM way of working. Agnieszka is an expert on modelling and helped a great deal with the flux balance analysis. Sergey helped us to set up an idea to create a continuous bioreactor. Over the summer we had ten meeting with them to discuss our progress on the project. Next to technical help, we also had a great deal of help by accessing the big network of EV Biotech. As a special honor, we were invited to the official opening of the new EV Biotech office. Here we had the possibility to pitch our project to several experienced people in the business.
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<h4>Analysis</h4>
 
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<p>
 
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For our LCA analysis , we have set the study boundary to what is called the ‘cradle to gate’ analysis instead of a full LCA which is called the ‘cradle to grave’ analysis (see figure 1). The reason for this is twofold. First of all, we discovered the LCA analysis in a late phase of the project. Therefore, so we did not have enough time to do the complete quantitative analysis because, in that case you have to look at all the inputs and outputs of equivalent CO2 of feedstock and energy, for each stage of our process, which is a complex task and in some cases that information is not even freely available. However, the main reason we choose to use the cradle to gate analysis over the cradle to grave is that fact that it is the only part that matters, since we will produce the exact same product, namely styrene. The second part of the life-cycle will be exactly the same. Therefore, the only part that matters is from the feedstock you use and the energy required to the product, in our case styrene. 
 
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/f/f9/T--Groningen--lcaexplain.jpg">
 
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<p>Figure 1. Figure retrieved from: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-20192013000200001">http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-20192013000200001</a>
 
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<h4>Contacts</h4>
 
  
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<p>
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In order to evaluate the environmental impact of the two ways of producing styrene, we met with multiple experts from the University of Groningen, and with experts from various start-ups and companies. First of all, Tjerk Douma, a master student whose specialized in sustainability and did a major part of the analysis. We also met with prof. dr. F. Francesco Picchioni, of the University of Groningen, head of the Product technology department - Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen.  Moreover, we met with the start-up companies BioBTX and Zernike Advanced Processing and the companies CE Delft and Avantium.
+
<h4> NRK: Martin van Dord (24th July 2018) </h4>
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</p>
+
            <p>  
 +
    <a href="http://www.nrk.nl/"> NRK </a> is the Dutch Federation of plastic & rubber converters, with 20 different sub associations and 400 member companies. We talked to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-van-dord-75268724/"> Martin van Dord</a>, innovation consultant at NRK and <a href="http://www.topsectorchemie.nl/"> Topsector Chemie</a>. According the NRK facts and figures 2017 the use of bioplastics is ca 20 kiloton (1%) of the 2.000 kton used (2017). Main problem for the use of bioplastics is the price issue. The price is up twice as high as virgin plastics. In order to contribute to the goals of the Climat Agreement of Paris, the objective is to lift this percentage to 15% in 2030. Mr. van Dord thought our project was very interesting, since we find a new way to produce bioplastics. However, he was wondering why we would focus on styrene that much. Why not create a new bioplastic with even better qualities? He also stated the business case should be a part in the project in order to get a better insight in the potential of genetically manufactured/engineered bioplastics and the scale of economic feasible production facilities. NRK also put an article about us on their <a href="https://www.nrk.nl/nieuws/nieuws-detail?newsitemid=2907144192">website</a>
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<h4> Bioclear Earth: Jeroen Tideman (27th July 2018) </h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
We had contact with the employees of BioClear Earth, who gave us great tips on the financial aspects of our project. Because pure cellulose is more expensive than glucose, we needed to find a waste source which we could use in our process. They came up with the idea to use recycled toilet-paper, which can not be used for other purposes duo to its imago. After this, they explained to us how the market for enzymes works, and also brought us into contact with various people in the market. Next to the people from the enzyme field, they told us about various parties who are working on turning cellulose into glucose. Lastly they gave us the tip to use glucose instead of cellulose for our project. However, we thought this was not feasible as we do not want to be regarded as competition to the food industry.
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<h4> KNN Cellulose: Yme Flapper(31st August 2018) </h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
We've visited KNN Cellulose! After doing a lot of research in possibilities in biomass, we found a company which produces Recell® . This is an innovative new product from recycled toilet paper which consists for more than 90% out of cellulose. They asked us whether there is a possibility if we can use their product to create styrene. This way we really use waste streams to create StyGreen! The company develops biomass chemicals and is looking for new innovative and sustainable ways of production. GMO technology fits this profile. KNN provided us with a sample of their product so we can test, and they are very interested in our results.
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<h4> Avantium: Ronny Pals (31st August 2018) </h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
On 31.08. Rianne, Jens, Benno, Bram and team associate Tjerk Douma visited the Chemistry Park Delfzijl where we had a meeting with Avantium. Avantium is breaking down wood chips chemically to hemicellulose, glucose and lignin. Their technology furthermore allows them to break down cellulose with acid to glucose monomers in a one pot reaction with high yields while recovering the acid. We are trying to do exactly the same but enzymatically, employing our cellulosome. We agreed to test the suitability of the glucose Avantium made from wood chips for growth medium for s.cerevisiae. Beyond that we learned a lot about the process of valorizing innovations in general. They gave us a lot of insight regarding the financial and technical bottlenecks that stand between a promising idea and a large scale profitable industrial process. We were impressed by Avantiums technology as it is very robust, works with almost any type of wood and requires only very little material preparation, especially in comparison to our enzymatic approach. An important take away for us was therefore that we have to consider the expenses and environmental implications of our cellulose preparation (grinding, autoclaving, phosphorylating) as well, rather than just our yeast growing on cellulose.
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<h4> BioBTX: Pieter Imhof (25th July 2018) </h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
As suggested by the Science Shop, we got into contact with Pieter Imhof of BioBTX. This company is also making chemical intermediates out of biomass, but this company uses a chemical way of working. They explained to us how they use pyrolysis, and combined this by a catalytic conversion step. This way they were able to reach aromatics yields of approximately 30-70%, with BTX (Benzene, Toluene, Xylene) yields ranging from 5-40%, yielde dependent on feed and process condition used.  
 +
On our project, Mr. Imhof thought that the process of turning glucose into styrene not have enough yields to be economically feasible. However, he thought the cellulose to glucose step in one pot combined with glucose to styrene could be a interesting improvement. Next to this, he explained that with every chemical step, there is more CO2 emission, the magnitude dependent on reaction conditions. So whereas our method would not be able to have industrial needs, it would likely be greener than the chemical process of refining biomass, and significantly better than fossil based. These steps are bound together in the Life Cycle Analysis, which can be found on the wiki and in given references. Mr. Imhof explained to us that we should not go into deep into this, and gave us great references about their own research.
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<h4> Fablab: Winand Slingenbergh </h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
As the iGEM team Groningen aims to produce styrene, a plastic monomer, making actual plastic products from our monomer was an obvious idea. As the quantities of styrene we managed to produce are not large enough for industrial applications we found an interesting partner in Fablab Groningen, a 3D printing venture. Fablab is an open-source, global network that originated from an MIT course titled ‘How to make almost anything’ they have stayed true to this ideal and offer a wide variety of plastic and wood working techniques in their laboratories.
 +
3D printing with ABS plastic is possible, but it has some drawbacks, hence we decided to collaborate with Fablab Groningen without actually using StyGreen for 3D printing. We quickly realized that 3D printed biological structures can be of great educational value. Therefore we made prints of the most important enzymes in our project: The cellulose binding domain, the endogluconase, the beta-gluconase and the Phenylalanine Ammonia Lyase. We also printed some of their ligands and matched them size wise to showcase where the pocket with the active site in the enzyme is and which chemical alteration is happening.
 +
We also developed a kit of building blocks for styrene, butadiene, acrylnitril and divinylbenzene that can showcase the process of copolymerization through magnets. On top of that our mascot Styrene Steve was 3D printed multiple times and given as present to some of our sponsors as a nice gesture and to keep iGEM in people’s minds. All structures we designed with FabLab are open source and can be found on their website https://www.thingiverse.com/.
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<h4> ZAP: Drs. R.J. van Linschoten (4th September 2018)</h4>
 +
            <p>
 +
One of the first steps when considering upscaling is finding a suitable location for a pilot plant. The province of Groningen is a strong agricultural and industrial area. Therefore, the province of Groningen can support the conversion of waste streams from biomass in high-end products. ZAP stands for Zernike Advanced Processing. ZAP offers an unique test environment for bio-based experiments in the northern region of the Netherlands, they offer the facilities to setup a pilot plant. ZAP tries to act on the signal that we need to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels. ZAP is an innovation cluster which is located on the Zernike Campus of the University of Groningen, this can lead to a symbiotic relation between the knowledge of the university and the industry of the surrounding area. We met with drs. R.J. van Linschoten, director of the Zernike Advanced Processing, on the 4th of September. With him we discussed the prerequisites for setting up a pilot plant.
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<h4>Conclusions</h4>
 
  
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<ol>
 
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<li> Toilet paper waste is used as the primary raw material in the biorefinery to produce styrene. </li>
 
−
<li> Is it possible to take that percentage and use it in the biorefinery? The composition of cellulose is the determining factor which would need to be examined. If the raw materials were made up of pure biomass then the implications to the environment would be proportionally greater. Therefore locally sourced biomass, which does not impact on agricultural land, is the preferred option. </li>
 
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<li> Currently the biorefinery is an energy and chemically intensive process. The amounts needed to convert x kg/h of raw materials into glucose is substantial. </li>
 
−
</ol>
 
  
  

Revision as of 14:17, 15 October 2018

Human Practices

For the StyGreen project, Human Practices was not a box that needed to be filled. It was a tool to integrate our project in the real world. As we are producing plastics, from the beginning Human Practices was very important, as it is a very sensitive subject. However, by talking to a lot of stakeholders, from suppliers to buyers and start-ups to multinationals, we have gained a lot of insights of how the plastic world works, and how we fit in this picture.

As Human Practices is not an binary subject, but something that you are working on the whole day, we gave a summary of the biggest influences on the design of our project. However, a lot of insight we had as well by talking to friends, family and complete strangers. One of the first questions always was: “why more plastics?”. We have thought about this a lot, and thought about what is good and what is bad about plastics. We looked into ‘biodegradable’ plastics , as well as chemically created bio-plastics.

The Human Practices Tree

To get a good overview, we invite you to have a look at our thought tree. This tree catched the new light in its leaves, and by choosing the right and wrong from it grew into a great tree. Also we had great conversations on how to grow the tree bigger if iGEM is ended. How to scale up the product, and which safety procedures we had to keep in mind.

  • Our interactive timeline

    Click on the icons in the timeline, and find out about all the insights we gained from our stakeholders and how the dialogues shaped our project.

EV Biotech

The young, Groningen based biotech startup EV Biotech offered to collaborate with us in many aspects. Represented by Linda Dijkshoorn, Agnieszka Wegryzn and Sergey Lunev, EVBiotech was present at multiple meetings with our subgroups. Linda had great tips about structure and organisation, and helped us to set up a SCRUM way of working. Agnieszka is an expert on modelling and helped a great deal with the flux balance analysis. Sergey helped us to set up an idea to create a continuous bioreactor. Over the summer we had ten meeting with them to discuss our progress on the project. Next to technical help, we also had a great deal of help by accessing the big network of EV Biotech. As a special honor, we were invited to the official opening of the new EV Biotech office. Here we had the possibility to pitch our project to several experienced people in the business.

NRK: Martin van Dord (24th July 2018)

NRK is the Dutch Federation of plastic & rubber converters, with 20 different sub associations and 400 member companies. We talked to Martin van Dord, innovation consultant at NRK and Topsector Chemie. According the NRK facts and figures 2017 the use of bioplastics is ca 20 kiloton (1%) of the 2.000 kton used (2017). Main problem for the use of bioplastics is the price issue. The price is up twice as high as virgin plastics. In order to contribute to the goals of the Climat Agreement of Paris, the objective is to lift this percentage to 15% in 2030. Mr. van Dord thought our project was very interesting, since we find a new way to produce bioplastics. However, he was wondering why we would focus on styrene that much. Why not create a new bioplastic with even better qualities? He also stated the business case should be a part in the project in order to get a better insight in the potential of genetically manufactured/engineered bioplastics and the scale of economic feasible production facilities. NRK also put an article about us on their website

Bioclear Earth: Jeroen Tideman (27th July 2018)

We had contact with the employees of BioClear Earth, who gave us great tips on the financial aspects of our project. Because pure cellulose is more expensive than glucose, we needed to find a waste source which we could use in our process. They came up with the idea to use recycled toilet-paper, which can not be used for other purposes duo to its imago. After this, they explained to us how the market for enzymes works, and also brought us into contact with various people in the market. Next to the people from the enzyme field, they told us about various parties who are working on turning cellulose into glucose. Lastly they gave us the tip to use glucose instead of cellulose for our project. However, we thought this was not feasible as we do not want to be regarded as competition to the food industry.

KNN Cellulose: Yme Flapper(31st August 2018)

We've visited KNN Cellulose! After doing a lot of research in possibilities in biomass, we found a company which produces Recell® . This is an innovative new product from recycled toilet paper which consists for more than 90% out of cellulose. They asked us whether there is a possibility if we can use their product to create styrene. This way we really use waste streams to create StyGreen! The company develops biomass chemicals and is looking for new innovative and sustainable ways of production. GMO technology fits this profile. KNN provided us with a sample of their product so we can test, and they are very interested in our results.

Avantium: Ronny Pals (31st August 2018)

On 31.08. Rianne, Jens, Benno, Bram and team associate Tjerk Douma visited the Chemistry Park Delfzijl where we had a meeting with Avantium. Avantium is breaking down wood chips chemically to hemicellulose, glucose and lignin. Their technology furthermore allows them to break down cellulose with acid to glucose monomers in a one pot reaction with high yields while recovering the acid. We are trying to do exactly the same but enzymatically, employing our cellulosome. We agreed to test the suitability of the glucose Avantium made from wood chips for growth medium for s.cerevisiae. Beyond that we learned a lot about the process of valorizing innovations in general. They gave us a lot of insight regarding the financial and technical bottlenecks that stand between a promising idea and a large scale profitable industrial process. We were impressed by Avantiums technology as it is very robust, works with almost any type of wood and requires only very little material preparation, especially in comparison to our enzymatic approach. An important take away for us was therefore that we have to consider the expenses and environmental implications of our cellulose preparation (grinding, autoclaving, phosphorylating) as well, rather than just our yeast growing on cellulose.

BioBTX: Pieter Imhof (25th July 2018)

As suggested by the Science Shop, we got into contact with Pieter Imhof of BioBTX. This company is also making chemical intermediates out of biomass, but this company uses a chemical way of working. They explained to us how they use pyrolysis, and combined this by a catalytic conversion step. This way they were able to reach aromatics yields of approximately 30-70%, with BTX (Benzene, Toluene, Xylene) yields ranging from 5-40%, yielde dependent on feed and process condition used. On our project, Mr. Imhof thought that the process of turning glucose into styrene not have enough yields to be economically feasible. However, he thought the cellulose to glucose step in one pot combined with glucose to styrene could be a interesting improvement. Next to this, he explained that with every chemical step, there is more CO2 emission, the magnitude dependent on reaction conditions. So whereas our method would not be able to have industrial needs, it would likely be greener than the chemical process of refining biomass, and significantly better than fossil based. These steps are bound together in the Life Cycle Analysis, which can be found on the wiki and in given references. Mr. Imhof explained to us that we should not go into deep into this, and gave us great references about their own research.

Fablab: Winand Slingenbergh

As the iGEM team Groningen aims to produce styrene, a plastic monomer, making actual plastic products from our monomer was an obvious idea. As the quantities of styrene we managed to produce are not large enough for industrial applications we found an interesting partner in Fablab Groningen, a 3D printing venture. Fablab is an open-source, global network that originated from an MIT course titled ‘How to make almost anything’ they have stayed true to this ideal and offer a wide variety of plastic and wood working techniques in their laboratories. 3D printing with ABS plastic is possible, but it has some drawbacks, hence we decided to collaborate with Fablab Groningen without actually using StyGreen for 3D printing. We quickly realized that 3D printed biological structures can be of great educational value. Therefore we made prints of the most important enzymes in our project: The cellulose binding domain, the endogluconase, the beta-gluconase and the Phenylalanine Ammonia Lyase. We also printed some of their ligands and matched them size wise to showcase where the pocket with the active site in the enzyme is and which chemical alteration is happening. We also developed a kit of building blocks for styrene, butadiene, acrylnitril and divinylbenzene that can showcase the process of copolymerization through magnets. On top of that our mascot Styrene Steve was 3D printed multiple times and given as present to some of our sponsors as a nice gesture and to keep iGEM in people’s minds. All structures we designed with FabLab are open source and can be found on their website https://www.thingiverse.com/.

ZAP: Drs. R.J. van Linschoten (4th September 2018)

One of the first steps when considering upscaling is finding a suitable location for a pilot plant. The province of Groningen is a strong agricultural and industrial area. Therefore, the province of Groningen can support the conversion of waste streams from biomass in high-end products. ZAP stands for Zernike Advanced Processing. ZAP offers an unique test environment for bio-based experiments in the northern region of the Netherlands, they offer the facilities to setup a pilot plant. ZAP tries to act on the signal that we need to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels. ZAP is an innovation cluster which is located on the Zernike Campus of the University of Groningen, this can lead to a symbiotic relation between the knowledge of the university and the industry of the surrounding area. We met with drs. R.J. van Linschoten, director of the Zernike Advanced Processing, on the 4th of September. With him we discussed the prerequisites for setting up a pilot plant.