Plastic waste made by man is a major threat to marine ecology.
About 5 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world's oceans pose a significant threat to the marine ecosystem. Once plastic is produced, is there a way to break it down? Two 19-year-old high school girls accidentally found 'plastic for eating' bacteria. This new discovery By veteran scientific evaluation committee of Canada market capitalization of more than 10 million Canadian dollars (about 5.2 million yuan)!
The achievement also made the two Chinese high school students named "Top 20 Under 20" by PlanCanada, a Canadian nonprofit organization. The two were invited to share their speech at TED, including Bill Gates, the richest man in the world Bill Gates) and Google founder Larry Page sit downstage to listen.
Two 19-year-old Chinese high school students, Yao Kai-yun (left) and Wang Yu-wen (right), discovered the technology of natural decomposition of plastics with microorganisms.
Plastic is a temporary convenience for permanent damage
According to a report from the Global Engineers website, Jeanny Yao, a Chinese-American girl from Maggie Middle School in Vancouver, Canada, and her high school classmate Miranda Wang visited Vancouver's refuse transfer station some time ago and were surprised to learn that piles of plastic garbage mountain 5,000 years will not decompose '.
The staff further explained that the "phthalates" (PAEs) in plastics make plastics more plastic and more transparent, and make plastics more durable and longer-life, and the convenience behind the convenience The huge cost, that is, causing permanent pollution to the ecological environment, but also very harmful to the human body.
Since then, they have started research to find a successful system to remove large amounts of plastic completely before the pollution inundates our marine environment.
A cross-country research team found that there was plastic waste in one of every four fish in Indonesia, the Denpasar dump on Bali.
Marine debris, nine into plastic.
The courage to try the mistakes lead to success
After reading hundreds of scientific papers, they think that since people synthesize plastic synthetically, the best solution is to decompose them by 'biodegradation' (materials act in the body through enzymolysis or phagocytosis) .
They sought help from their professors and began collecting bacteria in a river near their home, however during one experiment they accidentally splashed the flask containing the bacteria, causing the bacteria to mix with the plastic.
When they were finished, they found the plastic was broken down by the bacteria, and they quickly separated the bacteria and did the same experiment, and the result was as they expected.
Wang Yuwen and Yao Jiayun accidentally found in the experiment bacteria can automatically break down the plastic.
They found that the three strains that grew out of the plasticizer changed their structure and eventually broke down into carbon dioxide, water, or alcohol, making microbes an effective way to reduce plasticisation-80 times faster than existing organisms in the world.
Yao Jia Yun and Wang Yuwen study found that when the bacterial concentration increases, the phthalate concentration is relatively reduced.
Because of such a big discovery, they began to be invited to give speeches and the venue was full. The audience sat under the stage to listen not only to the scientific community's predecessors and major biotech company experts, and even Silicon Valley elders are very interested in their research.
"Although we are not the first to find bacteria that can break down phthalates, we are the first to study the local rivers and find ways to solve local problems," said Yao Jia Yun in his 2013 TED speech.
'We not only found out that bacteria can solve the problem of plastic pollution, but we also prove that we are open-minded about the results and we are willing to take risks and create opportunities for unexpected discoveries,' adds Yao Jiayun.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is also deeply interested in the research of the two girls.
In fact, scientists elsewhere in the world are developing similar solutions to the plastic problem in the world, and bacteria are not the only plastic eaters.
In 2015, Stanford and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics partnered to study how Tenebite (mealworm) can safely eat Styrofoam and plastic, and some Japanese scientists also discovered a new bacterial species last year Produces enzymes to decompose PET plastic.
The difference is that Wang and Yao's research can directly cultivate bacteria in the plastic composition, becoming the first use of microorganisms to solve the floating plastic garbage in the local ocean.
21-year-old company set to solve the world's plastics problem
Next, two girls want to develop a giant plastic digester that can be mounted on a truck or boat, and workers can then place the plastic waste in the digester and degrade it.
To do that, they set up their own company, BioCellection, and applied for two patents, raising about $ 400,000 now, hoping to make a mobile clearing house ready to use local bacteria to digest local plastics.
They are expected to be priced at a 20,000 US dollars, and within two years began to test the sale.
Yao Jia Yun and Wang Yuwen research can directly cultivate bacteria in the plastic composition.