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High Performance | Renewable | Fully Biodegradable
Plastic Material from Plants
52% Bio-Content
ASTM 5338 Aerobic
Biodegradation Report
Certification — in Process
USDA Bio-Preferred
Certification — in Process
Peer Reviewed
Science Paper
LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) on Polymer and Product
Certification — in Process
Existing petroleum plastic materials continue to damage our environment.
Petroleum plastic materials as a category are responsible for 850 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Unless we cut production, that number will increase.
532 billion pounds of plastic are landfilled or incinerated each year. These materials take over 450 years to degrade in the natural environment. Because they can never biodegrade, they photodegrade which means the sun breaks the material into harmful microplastics.
18 billion pounds of plastic flow into the ocean each year. Unfortunately, most of the larger pieces of plastic break down into harmful microplastics. Microplastics threaten wildlife because animals mistake the plastic for food and eat it.
Petroleum plastic materials as a category are responsible for 850 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Unless we cut production, that number will increase.
532 billion pounds of plastic are landfilled or incinerated each year. These materials take over 450 years to degrade in the natural environment. Because they can never biodegrade, they photodegrade which means the sun breaks the material into harmful microplastics.
18 billion pounds of plastic flow into the ocean each year. Unfortunately, most of the larger pieces of plastic break down into harmful microplastics. Microplastics threaten wildlife because animals mistake the plastic for food and eat it.
Three world-class scientists from UC San Diego, along with a team of PhD students and Post-doctoral fellows, worked for over 5 years to develop Soleic®, a fully biodegradable polyurethane plastic made from plants.
Dr. Stephen Mayfield, PhD,
Molecular Biology
Dr. Michael Burkart, PhD,
Organic Chemistry
Dr. Skip Pomeroy, PhD,
Analytical Chemistry
With support and funding from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, we were able to develop polyurethanes (PU) with the same high performance as petroleum PU, but that were biologically sourced and biodegradable. Introducing Soleic® technology.
1 The crude petroleum oil we dig up out of the ground, is simply ancient fossil algae oil
2 Since algae oil is similar to petroleum, we can use algae oil as the raw material to manufacture polyurethane monomers that are similar to petroleum monomers
3 Algae oils can be extracted from living algae, that can be grown on land not needed for farming
4 Algae grown to produce oils, trap carbon dioxide, whereas petroleum oils emit carbon dioxide
5 Algae is a renewable oil resource, meaning it grows like any plant
6 Algae oil can be used to make products just like petroleum oil
7 Polymer materials built from algae or other plants can be designed to biodegrade
We get algae oil and other raw materials from our algae growing partners and other biological sources
We engineer these raw materials into custom bioplastic at the molecular level in our labs at UCSD
We design the molecules so that the chemical bonds can be broken by micro-organisms that exist
in nature
Once we have stable bioplastic in the lab, we design products using these materials that still meet the performance specifications of petroleum polymers
We made an algae surfboard and it went viral—it was really popular
Shoe companies then contacted us to help them produce soft foams for midsoles
We experimented with our formulas until they met strict performance specifications for our brand partners
Currently our foams are 52% bio-content, but we have a clear path to foams that will be 98% bio-content. All of our foams are fully biodegradable.
Algenesis is a material science and technology company on a mission to help the planet recover from the pollution caused by products made from fossil fuels. Our scientists redesigned plastic materials to harmonize with nature. Our patented Soleic™ technology is the world’s first high performance, renewable, and fully biodegradable plastic material made from plants.
