Kasra Khatami Mashhadi, a researcher on material recycling at KTH is developing a way to transform wastewater residue into bioplastics using bacteria. Bacteria in wastewater act as natural bioplastic factories.
“Most people think of wastewater as something that stinks and is bad, but we use it to create usable materials”, says Kasra Khatami Mashhadi.
In the sewage treatment plants, the rinsing water is processed and purified, while slag remains that can be used to create new products. The bacteria in the slag have a unique property that researchers want to take advantage of.
“We can use wastewater from households and industries to produce bioplastics with the help of our good friends the bacteria”, says Kasra Khatami Mashhadi who is researching how bioplastics production of wastewater can become more efficient.
Currently, this residue from sewage plants is often recycled to create biogas for buses and manure for fields. But at KTH, Kasra Khatami Mashhadi is investigating how bacteria from wastewater can become more efficient in bioplastic production. The bacteria store energy in the form of chemicals that researchers can extract to convert into bioplastics.
Bioplastics made from organic materials can be created from residual products such as wastewater or food waste, and are less harmful to nature, since they can decompose more easily, while avoiding residual microplastics.
“It takes over 300 years for ordinary plastic to break down. But bioplastics are broken down in the environment in two months and do no harm to the environment”, adds Kasra Khatami Mashhadi. “Instead of throwing away the slag, we recycle it and try to get as much as possible out of it. It is both cheap material and available in large quantities all over the world”.
Bioplastics have the potential to be applied in numerous industries, ranging from packaging to medical materials. So far, bioplastics are produced in this way only on a small scale, but Kasra Khatami Mashhadi believes that we will soon be able to see production on a larger scale as well.
