Description

Paper is one of the most common natural resources we used in everyday life. The invention of paper allowed human to record knowledge and spread information rapidly. In modern world, the enormous amount of paper usage is decreasing the tree density around the globe. Paper reuse is a strategy of reducing tree cut, but recycling paper isn’t an easy job. Paper are made of different fibers depending on the manufacturing process, and printed with different inks. These reasons increase the difficulty of turning the pulp clean and ready for use. Deinking is the process which separates the ink and paper fiber during the cleanup of reprocessed paper pulp. The deinking process in the industry use chemical reagents like detergent, alkali which would cause water pollution and air pollution. Our plan is to replace the chemical reagents with biological enzymes, turning the waste into an environmentally friendly organic compound. We are going to create a controllable enzyme secrete system which would extend the limit of deinking and be more eco-friendly.

In order to find out the better enzyme, Information and Simulation group utilize several software technique to analyze hundreds of enzymes’ binding affinity with their ligand, and provide the result to bio-development group. We first found out the templates of similar proteins by using Swiss-model, and download all these protein structure files from RCSB protein data bank. Before performing protein docking, we utilize Discovery Studio to fix the protein conformation, and minimized the ligands energy to let the result be more accurate. AutoDock software can simulate the docking between enzyme and ligand and calculate the binding affinity. We rank the binding affinity of each protein and visualize the docking situation of ten best result using PyMOL. Finally, the bio-development group can construct the plasmid base on this docking result. Information and simulation group also built the wiki page to present the result of iGEM CGU Taiwan.

We utilize photo-induced system to stimulate yeast expressing enzyme. For reacting on the specific place to maintain the strength of recycling paper, we design a device to determine the location of ink on the paper. In order to test enzyme efficiency, we imitate the paper recycle process of industry method and make paper. After recycling process, we scan the paper and calculate the amount of residual ink. First, we take a picture of a piece of paper which has ink with cellphone. Based on RGB color level, we design software to calculate the degree of blackness on each pixel, and distinguish where present the ink. Then the data is transferred through the microcontroller, called Arduino, let LED matrix turn on the illumination on the position which have ink. After spreading the yeast on paper, we lay the LED matrix on the paper, turn on the light to stimulate the yeast on specific area. The second part that engineering group in charge of is testing the efficiency of enzyme. We establish a paper reprocess protocol after using enzyme to deink. First of all, the waste paper would be blended into pulp, utilize the physical strength to disperse fiber. The purpose of next step, called flotation, is to remove the ink from fiber. We put a pump at the bottom to make bubbles. Because the ink can attach on the lipophilic side of bubbles, the ink will be dispersed from fiber and follow with bubble up to the surface. Scrap the bubble on the surface to get the clean pulp. The last step is paper making, we heat the pulp and apply the pressure to make the paper.

Paper is one of the most common natural resources we used in everyday life. The invention of paper allowed human to record knowledge and spread information rapidly. In modern world, the enormous amount of paper usage is decreasing the tree density around the globe. Paper reuse is a strategy of reducing tree cut, but recycling paper isn’t an easy job. Paper are made of different fibers depending on the manufacturing process, and printed with different inks. These reasons increase the difficulty of turning the pulp clean and ready for use. Deinking is the process which separates the ink and paper fiber during the cleanup of reprocessed paper pulp. The deinking process in the industry use chemical reagents like detergent, alkali which would cause water pollution and air pollution. Our plan is to replace the chemical reagents with biological enzymes, turning the waste into an environmentally friendly organic compound. We are going to create a controllable enzyme secrete system which would extend the limit of deinking and be more eco-friendly.