Progress in the Development and Use of a Named Biopolymer

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Chemistry PAT Question 1 Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a biopolymer with properties very similar to that of polypropylene, though has all the benefits that come with biopolymers. PHB was first introduced to the scientific community by the scientist Maurice Lemoigne in 1926. He noticed that to produce PHB you need particular micro-organisms such as Alcaligenes Eutrophus or Bacilius megaterium undergoing physiological stress in an apparatus such as an agar dish to allow the micro-organisms to multiply. In order to achieve this stress there is a restriction to the amount of nitrogen the micro-organisms can attain thereby altering its nutrition. This is quite an efficient method of production and the amount of the PHB polymer yielded is around 30-80% of the dry weight of the micro-organisms used. Even though this method is efficient it is still not quite economically viable as there is the high cost of using the agar solution, petri dishes and the removal of the nitrogen. More recently as this biopolymers potential to society has become more prominent, scientists are trying to develop more efficient and sustainable means to produce it. In 1992 the idea of using genetically modified plants to produce PHB was developed at Michigan State University. By using the genes from two bacteria producing organisms such as Alcaligenes Eutrophus, they could insert them into cress plants with the aim of these plants producing the PHB. This process worked and the plants and some of their offspring produced around 14% of the dry weight as PHB. Although this is not as high yielding as when it is produced in the petri dishes, it is a much more economically viable method of production and hence would give a much more substantial impact to society. Chemically PHB is from a group of biopolymers known as the polyhyroxyalkanoates. Figure 1 below shows other examples of biopolymers in

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