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“It is not enough to just introduce the PHB material like pellets into the market and expect manufacturers to pick it up. We need to have physical examples of these end products.”

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Omand admits one of the greatest challenges in doing this work is not the designing of ocean instruments, but entering the world of entrepreneurs who use terms like “market fit” and “minimal viable product.” As part of the NSF Convergence Accelerator, Omand and her colleagues must engage with potential end-product users, identify their needs and how PHB-based plastics can make their businesses more profitable. “Our homework was to work with coaches who helped us interview people in different sectors, creating full perspectives on what their pain points are and how products we make could be useful,” says Omand. “We aren’t necessarily meant to publish a paper at the end of it but find sustainable market potential. The experience helped us recognize the first ideas that we needed to pivot away from. “I never imagined that I would end up learning about the mechanics of starting a business, but without the coaching, I don’t think we would have been able to get through it as academics are extremely busy.” DRIFTING FUTURE The $4.9 million grant funding the work of Omand and her colleagues through Nereid Biomaterials is scheduled to end in August 2024. The URI oceanographer is hopeful that some of their end products transition into commercially viable instruments for industries such as commercial fishing, but the ideas and research they’ve compiled is more than enough to pursue other funding avenues when the grant concludes. What’s more, Omand says she is proud of the interns who have worked alongside the Nereid Biomaterials team and gone on to work in positions related to biodegradable plastics, particularly at Mango Materials. The more companies creating marine research and other ocean-related equipment out of biodegradable plastics, the better, she says. “More than anything I would love to actually have viable gear for fishing and ecosystem restoration. I will still be making low-cost, expendable ocean instrumentation, but it is so important for me to know that it’s ocean degradable.”

“More than anything I would love to actually have viable gear for fishing and ecosystem restoration. I will still be making low-cost, expendable ocean instrumentation, but it is so important for me to know that it’s ocean degradable.” - Melissa Omand

of developing low-cost ocean instruments that can be deployed without harm to marine environments and then never seen again, which saves on fuel and other costs that research cruises expend to retrieve expensive, highly complex instruments. Her MINION floats, glass tubes containing sensors to measure To ensure that an instrument made of PHB would break down in any marine environment, the group then brought on Anne Meyer.

the flow of carbon throughout the ocean’s water columns, offer a perfect example. Omand likens her position to that of a chief technology officer, deploying 3D printed test instruments such as eel trap doors. She also has PHB-made products in the shape of discs and “dog bones” placed in bottles at locations throughout Narragansett Bay, as well as in the Olympic National Marine Sanctuary in Washington State and in shallow and deep waters off Santa Barbara, CA. “The dog bones are long and skinny so we can observe what happens to their physical properties once they degrade,” she says. “Many of the standards for biodegradable plastics are determined by measuring powders or films, but most ocean debris is made from rigid, physical objects that break down into smaller particles at different rates.

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