Mi Terro Beer Waste Packaging Material

Mi Terro Beer Waste Packaging Material

Compostable packaging made from beer waste

Mi Terro is the world's first synthetic biology and advanced material company that utilizes big data to create home compostable, single-use plastic-alternative packaging materials made from plant-based agricultural waste – this is a first-of-its-kind approach. We are excited to see such a significant leap forward in our ability to manipulate nature’s most diverse and abundant building blocks.

We are not turning agricultural waste into beverage or snack like other companies. Instead, we are re-engineering plant-based agricultural waste to replace single-use plastic, glass, and paper materials and giving additional incomes to farmers all around the world.

Unlike current alternatives to microplastics, which are based on plant polysaccharides, such as cellulose and algae, Mi Terro’s plant protein materials do not rely on chemical cross-linking for their performance. This enables them to decompose quickly and completely in the natural environment. Our proprietary technology re-engineers agricultural waste into plastic-alternative packaging material. Our packaging film is monolayer (potentially recyclable), already 20-40% cheaper than other bio-based materials (PLA, PHA, PBAT) at pilot level, home compostable, ocean degradable, heat sealable, excellent water and oxygen barrier, low thickness, and potentially edible. In addition, our technology can be used for both flexible and rigid packaging, sourcing from the same raw material.

Proteins have a propensity for molecular self-organization and self-assembly, and plant proteins, in particular, are abundant and can be sourced sustainably as by-products of the food industry.

There are some advantages of proteins, such as relative abundance, good film-forming ability, high nutritional value, and so on, which make proteins be used extensively for preparing biodegradable films. Compared to polysaccharides and lipids, protein-based polymers are the most useful, because of the excellent gas barrier properties.

Besides, the mechanical properties of protein-based films are also better than those of polysaccharide-based and lipid-based films.

Our researchers successfully replicated the structures found on spider silk by using spent grain protein, a protein with a completely different composition. Because all proteins are made of polypeptide chains, under the right conditions we can cause plant proteins to self-assemble just like spider silk. In a spider, the silk protein is dissolved in an aqueous solution, which then assembles into an immensely strong fibre through a spinning process which requires very little energy.

In a way, we’ve come up with ‘vegan spider silk’ – we’ve created the same material without the spider.

Our new technique uses an environmentally friendly mixture of acetic acid and water, combined with ultrasonication and high temperatures, to improve the solubility of the spent grain protein. This method produces protein structures with enhanced inter-molecular interactions guided by the hydrogen bond formation. In a second step, the solvent is removed, which results in a water-insoluble film.

Our material has a performance equivalent to high-performance engineering plastics such as low-density polyethylene. Its strength lies in the regular arrangement of the polypeptide chains, meaning there is no need for chemical cross-linking, which is frequently used to improve the performance and resistance of biopolymer films. The most commonly used cross-linking agents are non-sustainable and can even be toxic, whereas no toxic elements are required for Mi Terro’s technique.

In addition to the material development successes, we will use artificial intelligence to detect and analyze thousands of inorganic polymers that best matches the mechanical properties of conventional plastic. With a combination of protein and inorganic polymers, we will be able to create multiple plastic-alternative solutions that have low cost, high quality and quick composability. We will open the A.I. platform to other companies so they can cut down research and development process time as well.

Our technology can potentially apply to any type of agricultural waste, including plant, dairy, and insects. Given the virtually unlimited supply, we will potentially replace all of the single-use plastic packaging materials. While bio-based, Mi Terro materials do not compete with food production, thereby preventing land-use-change. In contrast to conventional (bio)plastics, we do not need any harmful additives, solvents or chemicals and have up to 90% lower CO2 emissions.

Our material accommodates a diverse range of fully compostable packaging applications for product label, fashion, cosmetic, personal care, cleaning product, technological devices, bottle, and other flexible/rigid product packaging.

https://youtu.be/11bMfTpFGPk

www.miterro.com