Vanilla is a commonly used, widely enjoyed flavor and scent. You can easily find vanilla in candles, perfumes, and of course, ice cream. What you might not know is that the main flavor component of vanilla beans, vanillin, can be natural or synthetic—and that synthetic vanillin has been made from a variety of unexpected materials such as coal tar, wood pulp waste, and even cow manure.
In fact, synthetic vanillin is much more commonly used compared to natural vanilla extract and can be found in a wide array of items, from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. Vanilla demand is already high and is expected to grow; In 2018, the global vanilla market was valued at $510 million, but by 2026 it’s supposed to increase in value to $735 million.
This is why researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland intentionally sought out to simultaneously meet this demand and address one of our most urgent climate concerns: plastic waste. The research team figured out how to transform post-consumer plastic (plastic items that have been collected for recycling and cleaned) into vanillin using E. coli bacteria.
Although this unexpected combination may put you off at first, the fact of the matter is that this breakthrough could have an enormous positive impact on the plastic pollution problem we face today and is a step towards achieving a more circular economy.
Stephen Wallace, a lecturer of biotechnology at the University of Edinburgh and principal investigator of the study on plastic-derived vanillin, says that this is the first instance where something as problematic as plastic waste has been turned into a high-value molecule such as vanillin. The success of this study will lead to more opportunities to explore the technology and establish a new field of research. “It could help to address the plastic problem by providing ways not only to recycle plastic but to turn it into something more valuable than the starting material,” Wallace says.
Even though the research focused on using plastic from water bottles, the same process would be easy to apply to other similar materials because the same plastic that is used for water bottles (polyethylene terephthalate or PET plastic) is commonly used in food packaging and fabrics.
The process to turn PET plastic into vanillin begins by degrading it into its components, terephthalic acid, and ethylene glycol, which also happens when plastic gets chemically recycled. Then, the terephthalic acid is put through a microbial fermentation process that uses E. coli bacteria, and the result is vanillin. So far, the team reports a 79 percent success rate.
The next steps include determining whether the vanillin is pure enough for consumption. Then, according to Wallace, the process needs to be refined so that they can produce higher yields of vanillin at a faster pace. So, if Wallace and his team have anything to do with it, doing your part for climate change may include opting for the vanilla-scented car freshener.
The post Scientists combine plastic waste and E. coli to make vanilla flavoring first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.Vanilla is a commonly used, widely enjoyed flavor and scent. You can easily find vanilla in candles, perfumes, and of course, ice cream. What you might not know is that the main flavor component of vanilla beans, vanillin, can be natural or synthetic—and that synthetic vanillin has been made from a variety of unexpected materials
The post Scientists combine plastic waste and E. coli to make vanilla flavoring first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.