When it comes to 3D printing, the sky is the limit. As 3D printing technology continues to advance, applications can be as far reaching as airplane and automobile parts to medical devices and even anatomically correct, biocompatible models. Although 3D printing technology is developing at a rapid pace, the technology itself is not new. It emerged in the 1980s as a means of creating rapid prototypes. In recent years the applications for 3D printed models have evolved with the available hardware, software, and printable materials. Evolving technology, paired with the creative and innovative minds of scientists, engineers, and physicians, has been the launching pad for developments within 3D printing technology specific to healthcare. One way 3D printing technology is poised to create better patient outcomes is in creating an anatomically and patient-specific models to aid in surgery and medical procedures. With the capability to 3D ...
Demand for both natural and synthetic rubber is up around the world. But the supply is getting tight because the necessary petrochemical intermediates for synthetic rubber are getting harder to find. Therefore, tire manufacturers are turning to several biotech firms for help in controlling volatile raw material costs by making the intermediates from sugars.
Melody Bomgardner writes for Chemical & Engineering News:
The common automobile tire contains rubber that’s extracted from latex-bearing trees and rubber that’s synthesized from petroleum feedstocks. Industrial biotechnology companies such as Genencor, Gevo, Amyris, and Genomatica want to give tire manufacturers a third option: biobased rubber ingredients made from sugar.Microbial fermentation holds promise for making three renewable rubber intermediates: isoprene, isobutene, and butadiene. The compounds cover a wide swath of ground for the rubber-making industry. Five-carbon isoprene is used to make synthetic latex similar to that of the rubber tree. Isobutene and butadiene are four-carbon intermediates used to make butyl rubber and styrene-butadiene rubber.
Right now, the intermediates used to make synthetic rubber for tires come from cracking in ethylene plants. But petrochemical makers are switching to lighter natural gas feedstocks, so the four- and five-carbon chemicals are getting scarce. And “the supply situation is unlikely to change, especially in North America,” is what William Hyde, director for four-carbon olefins and elastomers for the chemical consulting firm CMAI Global, told Chemical & Engineering News.
Although new renewable sources will not be commercially available for another three to five years, experts told Bomgardner that the renewables could still help buyers. Hyde told Bomgardner that the volumes will be small, and “it very much remains to be proven if they can produce on a cost-competitive basis [compared] with more traditional petrochemical pathways,” he said.
Genencor, teamed with Goodyear in 2007, genetically engineered microbes to produce isoprene synthase, which is what plants use to turn carbohydrates into latex. The process yields 60 grams of isoprene per liter of sugar solution.
Gevo is using corn and cellulose sugars as feedstocks. The company engineered yeast to produce isobutyl alcohol. Partner synthetic rubber company Lanxess converted it to isobutene, which polymerizes to butyl rubber.
Amyris, partnered with Michelin, will make renewable isoprene from a process similar to one that it uses to make farnesene, a 15-carbon molecule.
Genomatica has made pound-quantities of butadiene. The company is best known for making butanediol by feeding sugar to an engineered strain of Escherichia coli.
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