Ways to use the organic agricultural residues

Increasing interest is currently being shown in the production of biodegradable bioplastics such as polyhydroxyalcanoates (PHA) using selected microbial consortia in non-sterile systems, and particularly in inexpensive organic agricultural residues.The thermoplastic properties of PHAs are notably improved when their monomer content is made up of six to 14 carbon atoms (medium-chain-length PHAs), and particularly when they present functional groups (e.g. carboxyls, hydroxyls, epoxy, phenoxy). This improves their physical properties and broadens the range of possible applications for bioplastics.FunPlast is a sourcing project of the?Carnot Institute 3BCAR which proposes to identify the operating conditions that will facilitate the selection of micro-organisms producing mcl-PHA with innovative thermoplastic properties.The aim is to determine the conditions that will permit the exploitation of hydroxy-hexadecanoic acid (HHDA), a hydroxylated fatty acid that is a major component in the residues (skins) resulting from the manufacture of tomato pur?es, concentrates and juice.? The production of mcl-PHA will be evaluated in a continuous culture by coupling the macro-kinetic analysis of reactors with chemical analysis of the composition of the PHA produced (chemical composition, molecular weight).? Furthermore, the project will try to determine the relationship between the chemical composition and thermoplastic properties of the PHA thus generated, either alone or mixed with other biosourced materials.This project is being led by Guillerma Hernandez-Raquet at INSA in Toulouse, with the involvement of the ELIPS and MC2 teams in the Research Unit on Biopolymers - Interactions and Assemblies (BIA) at the INRA Centre in Angers?NantesSourceINRA, The newsletter for industry, July 2015