In London, biodegradable, seaweed-based plastics brand Notpla has raised £10 million ($13.2 million) to increase manufacturing and develop new applications. Notpla—which is short for not plastic—was founded in 2014 by Imperial College London and Royal College of Art alumni Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez and Pierre-Yves Paslier. The Series A round was led by Bangkok-based Horizons Ventures. […]
In Rhode Island, a team comprised of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students has won the first Google Biodesign Sprint competition with their biodegradable printed circuit board vision. The group, comprised of RISD industrial design students Avantika Velho and Connie Cheng and Brown University computational biology student Alexander Le, call their two-part […]
In Israel, cultivated steak producer MeaTech 3D announced that it has successfully “printed” a 3.67-ounce cut of beef without adding any soy or pea protein. To produce the steak—which the company believes is the largest created to date—MeaTech 3D isolated and grew bovine stem cells from tissue samples. Once sufficient numbers were achieved, the cells […]
In China, a researcher team at Tianjin University has developed what it calls the world’s most sustainable bioplastic using “natural DNA,” which sounds reasonable before it nonchalantly reveals the source of the DNA to be salmon sperm. The retrieval procedure was not described, but once on hand, the DNA was extracted and mixed with a […]
In New England, university scientists have reported the first known robot reproduction, enabled in part by the tiny organisms’ Pac-Man-like shape. The research team, comprised of members from University of Vermont, Tufts University, and Harvard’s Wyss Institute, earlier this year created programmable organisms, which they dubbed xenobots, using African clawed frog stem cells and artificial […]
In New York, popular Bravo reality show Project Runway has featured a competition where contestants had to create designs out of Koba, a biobased faux fur made from DuPont’s Sorona fibers and developed in collaboration with Ecopel. Episode 1907, entitled Are You Fur Real, aired last week. Designers had access to Koba in varying […]
In Tokyo, Suntory Group has unveiled a 100% biobased polyethylene terephthalate prototype developed in collaboration with biobased chemicals company Anellotech. The material was used to create bottles for the company’s popular Orangina beverage in Europe as well as Suntory Tennensui, its mineral water sold in Japan. The prototypes are a major milestone in Suntory’s decade-long […]
In Italy, sneaker brand ID.EIGHT has launched a new design using waste from fruits, including apples, grapes, and pineapples. More specifically, ID.EIGHT uses Piñatex, Vegea, and AppleSkin, emerging materials looking to provide eco-friendly alternatives for the fashion industry. Piñatex is a leather-like material made from waste leaves from Philippines’ pineapple industry. Vegea, made from wine […]
In Colorado, DMC Biotechnologies has raised $34 million to help advance its biobased chemical intermediate, which has applications in home care and human nutrition. The Series B funding included investment from Cibus Enterprise, Capricorn Partners, Sofinnova Partners, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, SCG, Boulder Ventures, Solvay Ventures and Michelin. “Building back better after the pandemic means we […]
In Finland, forest products company Stora Enso has launched two lightweight, biobased foams made from wood that are fully recyclable and can be used for protective and thermal packaging. The first—Fibrease™—is available now and made with up to 98% renewable materials. It is designed to replace polyurethane foams and polystyrene. The second, Papira®, just began […]
