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Celsius and specific microbes are deployed to decompose the polymer. No marine environment, says Omand, can match those conditions. Enter PHB, or polyhydroxybutyrate , a polymer that many bacteria already produce as an intracellular food reserve. Some microbes, known as methanotrophs , munch on methane and have been found in abundance throughout the world’s oceans: the same methane that is often trapped in ocean sediments and potentially released as the climate warms. If instruments like drifters could be made out of PHB, theorized Omand and Santoro, then maybe a biodegradable option was possible after all. RESEARCHERS, ASSEMBLE! Through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Convergence Accelerator Program, Omand and Santoro formed Nereid Biomaterials to test PHBs as a biodegradable material for marine applications. They teamed up with Mango Materials, a California-based company already established in creating biodegradable plastics, to provide pellets for experimentation and design. To ensure that an instrument made of PHB would break down in any marine environment, the group then brought on Anne Meyer, a synthetic biologist at the University of Rochester. The idea? Develop a way to adhere or blend living bacteria and non-living nutrients and enzymes into the biodegradable compound. “By compounding the plastic with these living cells and other naturally-occurring additives, we can help the material be really, really delicious for specific ocean microbes,” says Omand. “This work is still experimental, but if PHB is the grains, then these additives are the fruits and vegetables keeping the bacteria healthy to break down the plastic.” Omand’s main focus on the project, however, is to design and prototype end products made of PHB that members of ocean industries will use. She has long been a proponent

THE BIG QUESTION FOR OMAND IS: CAN WE DESIGN A BIOMATERIAL PURPOSE-BUILT FOR OCEAN DEGRADATION AND MAKE IT AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE USING MARINE TOOLS?

MINION floats, glass tubes containing sensors to measure the flow of carbon throughout the ocean’s water columns.

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