The methane used would otherwise have been emitted into the atmosphere, so the products are helping to sequester the greenhouse gas, Optimist Daily noted. That makes them "carbon-negative," Esquire pointed out, and "every product they create is pollution that didn't end up in the air and water." The...
Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:
Newlight Technologies, a California biotech company, has set its sights on curbing greenhouse gas emissions and marine plastic pollution simultaneously. The startup uses ocean bacteria to create a new material that is made of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and that can replace many single-use plastics and leathers.
Newlight has been exploring ways to make use of greenhouse gas emissions for more than a decade. "AirCarbon," its latest creation, is made with ocean microbes, air and waste greenhouse gases. The new biomaterial, which can be shaped into anything from straws to office chairs to frames for glasses, is durable, completely biodegradable in the ocean and carbon-negative, the company's website explained.
Herrema's team found inspiration in nature-based processes that take in methane and carbon dioxide. Researchers honed in on a certain strain of ocean microbes that consume methane as food and produce AirCarbon as a byproduct.
"After they eat that gas, [the microbes] then convert that into a really special material inside themselves," he told Fast Company. "It's a meltable energy storage material, which you can purify and then form into various parts and shapes and pieces."
Newlight replicated the process in land-based production tanks by combining saltwater containing the ocean microorganisms with air and methane from an abandoned coal mine, to create AirCarbon within the bacteria, Esquire reported. Researchers extracted the resultant substance and processed the material into a fine white powder which could be melted and molded into different shapes.
The methane used would otherwise have been emitted into the atmosphere, so the products are helping to sequester the greenhouse gas, Optimist Daily noted. That makes them "carbon-negative," Esquire pointed out, and "every product they create is pollution that didn't end up in the air and water." The products are actually "regenerative" because the production process for AirCarbon captures or destroys more greenhouse gases than it emits, the magazine added. A Newlight press release stated that "for every one kilogram of AirCarbon produced in Newlight's production process using methane seeping from abandoned coal mines, 88 kilograms of CO2e are sequestered."
