We degrade polyethylene and generate electricity from it!
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Team:Hong Kong HKUST
Engineer E. coli with Laccase gene to degrade PE into smaller alkane chains
Polyethylene Degradation
Metabolise alkane chains to convert it into Shewanella oneidensis food source
Alkane Metabolism
Use Shewanella oneidensis inbuilt
extracellular electron transport mechanism to produce electricity
The Microbial Fuel Cell
IGEM 2018 - TEAM HKUST
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
From plastics to the power line
The iGEM HKUST 2018 team attempts to generate electricity from the degradation of the most widely used plastic, polyethylene (PE), using a synthetic biology approach. Making use of E. coli engineered with genes encoding for laccase to degrade polyethylene into smaller alkane chains, our team recognizes the opportunity to further advance this project by addressing another key issue – energy. Using Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 strain’s inbuilt extracellular electron transport mechanism in tandem with genes responsible for alkane metabolism derived from Desulfatibacillum alkenivorans, we will generate electricity from the metabolism of degraded polyethylene, hoping that it will one day help in solving the world’s growing energy needs. Thus, our project serves as an integrated effort to simultaneously solve two crucial problems.
IGEM 2018 - TEAM HKUST
MFC DESIGN
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IGEM 2018 - TEAM HKUST
MODELLING
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IGEM 2018 - TEAM HKUST
HUMAN PRACTICES
Public education is presented in the form of exhibition during our university's information day (open day) with the following goals:
1. Promote synthetic biology as a tool to solve current problems and explain how the synthetic biology field tries to involve safety, ethics, policies, and the environment into our research and product designs.
2. Promote renewable energies as a part of our project theme of environmental sustainability.
3. Integrate stakeholders to our product design by demonstrating our project and conducting surveys from our potential users to discover public’s concerns and area of focus for product improvements.
The survey data from our public engagement exhibition, collaborations, and interviews with Prof. Davis Bookhart (department head of the HKUST sustainability office), had been integrated into the systematic design of our Microbial Fuel Cell.