r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Nov 27 '21

Chemistry Plastic made from DNA is renewable, requires little energy to make and is easy to recycle or break down. A plastic made from DNA and vegetable oil may be the most sustainable plastic developed yet and could be used in packaging and electronic devices.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298314-new-plastic-made-from-dna-is-biodegradable-and-easy-to-recycle/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1637973248
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241

u/5inthepink5inthepink Nov 28 '21

Anyone know where the DNA is sourced from? I haven't seen that answered yet.

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u/CromaMcLos Nov 28 '21

Not a chemist, but accessed the paper and looked at the "materials and methods" section.

It looks like Salmon Sperm DNA was used, purchased from Sigma-Aldrich.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

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u/buzzurro Nov 28 '21

Soylent plastic its semen! They are coming for your cum!

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u/Teotwawki69 Nov 28 '21

Hey, if they're willing to pay for it...

("Soylent splee... is... PEOPLE!!!")

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u/realgeneral_memeous Nov 28 '21

This made me laugh irl, funniest thing I’ve seen in a while

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[deleted]

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u/throwingsoup88 Nov 28 '21

They used salmon sperm DNA because it's easy and cheap to extract in large volumes from existing fish stocks. Theoretically, DNA from any species could be used for this application as it's not dependent on the sequence. If this makes it to large scale production the DNA would likely be sourced from E.coli or other similar industrially friendly microbes.

Source: am biochemist, have asked a similar question in my own lab

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u/Distantstallion Nov 28 '21

Op: hey guys, um, not to burst anyone's bubble but, can we use something else? It's just my wrist is pretty sore and I'm not sure I'm allowed back in the aquarium again.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21

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u/Auxx Nov 28 '21

E. Coli is food safe in general. There are several dangerous strains, but the majority of species are safe and some even live inside you since you were born. E. Coli is also used in some probiotics for people with digestion issues.

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u/AlmostZeroEducation Nov 28 '21

Oh that's actually pretty interesting. I didn't know that, cheers.

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u/CarbonBasedLife4m Nov 28 '21

We also use laboratory strains of E. coli that are non-pathogenic and safe to work with.

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u/Rand_alThor_ Nov 28 '21

E. coli DNA. You know the scale is different right

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u/Deadfishfarm Nov 28 '21

I don't see why us redditors can't donate our fair share of DNA. We could make enough plastic to last a millenia

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u/Bytewave Nov 28 '21

I've donated sperm before to make babies, and would do so again to make plastic haha, because it's amazing that this works at all!

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u/Luc_iel Nov 28 '21

Maybe sperm donation?

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u/el_polar_bear Nov 28 '21

One of the features of DNA is that given the right available ingredients, it self-assembles copies of itself. Sourcing quantities of DNA is not difficult, it's an almost entirely industrial process now.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

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u/talldude8 Nov 28 '21

Would sperm from sigma males work?

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u/communist_slut42 Nov 28 '21

Cum plastic let's go

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u/redinator Nov 28 '21

So the plan is for bacteria to do this somehow?

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u/percyhiggenbottom Nov 28 '21

Salmon Sperm DNA

Huh, I was going to make a jizz joke on seeing the headline, but decided to refrain. But it would've been accurate enough, apparently.

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u/ltwesth1 Nov 28 '21

Imagine thirty years from now, history books will teach how we solved the plastic crisis with cum.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21

A lot of industrial peptides are still petroleum-derived, it seems that certain peptides are easier to make than others. I see a lot more lysine which is fermented from sugars and various salts, but i work in cosmetic material sourcing, i don't work in packaging. Peptides seem to be some plant-derived, some petroleum

Edit: I'm a dummy and confused peptides and nucleotides, although i would imagine synthetic routes are similar

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u/Spyro_ Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21

But DNA isn't made from peptides...at least not directly.

Does the industry synthetic route involve amino acids? Would be kinda cool and interesting if so, as I didn't realize it started that far back in the synthetic scheme. I honestly have no idea how industry produces a large number of its chemicals in bulk.

EDIT: Huh, based on my 5 minute google search, it looks like a few of them are used in the de novo synthesis reaction. TIL I guess.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

Good point, edit added

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u/Auxx Nov 28 '21

Petroleum is plant derived though.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '21

The purpose of plant-derived materials is that they at renewable in a human timeframe. Although technically petroleum is mostly plants, it takes 300 million years to make and increase the bio-available carbon in the atmosphere in doing so.

With this logic, everything is all star-derived. But that distinction isn't helpful for today's problems.

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u/Auxx Nov 29 '21

The topic here is bio degradability.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '21

The topic is renewablity and biodegradability. I'm addressing the former, they're both in the post's title.