Template:Groningen/Human Practices

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.

  

  Carbon footprint analysis

  To find whether our technology actually was a a benefit for the world, and see how much better it would become, we did a Carbon Footprint Analysis. In collaboration with Tjerk Douma, we calculated in all the energy it would cost to create StyGreen compared to syrene. See here how we did that.

  Katja Loos

  A very important part in our project was the decision on what we should create from waste. Katja Loos had a huge influence as she explained that bio degradable plastics are not as degradable as people think. See here what she told us.

  Karin Ree

  Karin Ree helped students who want to do research outside the regular field. She send us papers on the feasibility of other bioplastics. See here what she told us.

  Avantium

  To see how biomass is processed, we went to Delfzijl with to see the pilot plant of Avantium. We learned a lot about upscaling, safety and cellulosic biomass. See here how we did that.

  Prof. dr. F. Picchioni

  Prof. Dr. F. Picchioni had a great influence on our project. He changed our idea of plastics completely, as we saw plastics as something bad before the conversation with him. Find our interview with him here.

  Collaboration Bordeaux

  Together with the iGEM team of Bordeaux we talked about the ethics of our product. Find our ethics collaborationhere.

  Gert-Jan Euverink

  Gert-Jan Euverink was the supervisor of the winning 2012 iGEM team, and also representative of the CADOS project on extracting cellulose from sewage water. See here what we discussed with him.

  Prof. Dr. A.J.M. Driessen

  Prof. Driessen helped us in the forming of our genetic model. Find his input here.

  RIVM

  In our project, safety was very important. Together with the RIVM, we made sure that the safety was implemented in our design. See here how we did that.

  EV Biotech

  From the beginning, EV Biotech has been our intellectual partner, and helped us on structuring our work, and with ideas for in the lab. See here why we are them very grateful.

  Molecular Dynamics model

  In our Molecular Dynamics mode we found how to bind the cellulose best to the cellulose binding domain. Look here if you want to know more.

  Flux Analysis Model

  Due to our Flux Analysis Model, we were able to find how much kilo styrene we could produce per kilo biomass. Next to this we found candidate interventions for target overproduction of styrene. See here what we've learned.

  Sergey (EV Bio)

  At the TRIZ workshop, Sergey from EV Biotech gave us great insights on how we could make a continues process instead of a batch one. See here what we've learned.

  Stakeholder Analysis

  To find how our technology would influence the world, we did a Stakeholder Analysis which you can find here. Next to that you can find the interviews with businesses here.

  Photanol

  We went to Photanol to have a look into their lab, and saw how they did the first steps of the upscaling. See here what we've learned.

  ZAP

  What does it mean to make a pilot plant? What kind of permits do you need? The people of ZAP explained it to us here

  KNN

  KNN is our main biomass supplier. They provided us with their Recell, and are very curious how we will turn cellulose to glucose and styrene. Find our first talk with them here.

  BioBTX

  BioBTX is a company which is similar to us. They make biobased aromatics, but in a chemical way. We discussed with them the differences between chemical and biological way here.

  Upscaling of our end-product

  When we have a working product, we have several interested parties who would invest in us. We talked to them here.

Carbon Footprint Analysis

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[1]. 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[2]. 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.

Analysis

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.

Figure 1. Figure retrieved from: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-20192013000200001

Contacts

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.

Conclusions

1. Toilet paper waste is used as the primary raw material in the biorefinery to produce styrene.
2. 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.
3. 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.