Team:Lethbridge HS/Description
Background Research
In deciding our project we thought that we should choose something that would apply to our community as well as the international community. THis idea led us to look into products that are used worldwide, and one of the things we found was ink. It is used in schools, homes and most commonly workplaces. We then decided to go to the public and explore the idea of an innovation for ink as a viable product. After some research, we discovered that the ink is made up of three main parts; the resin, the solvent, and the colorant. After a bit more research we found that the colorant makes up over 50% of the cost of ink. This led us to investigate why, and we found that the production of colorants and pigments creates some horrible byproducts.
Deciding our Project
After our initial research and our investigation of applicability we decided that we would do a project on ink. We were then forced to decide what part of ink we would tackle. The cost breakdown of ink led us to decide to create a colorant and the information regarding the harmful byproducts of pigment production led us to the environmental approach.
Maybe we could have the image of pigment production here, the one that shows the harmful byproducts.
SynthetInk
Our final decision led us to SynthetInk, the environmentally friendly pigment production. We will be creating four pigments that are found in different organisms around the world. We have found the genes that will allow us optimal pigment production within cells. We have decided to use synthetic biology to solve this problem because we found it the best possible solution:
(this will be a table or something but here is the content)
SynthetInk! Something about how cells will continually undergo cell division and produce pigment once we get our construct inside the cells. Also how the cells will just produce CO2.
Competing Methods:
Chemical synthesis - include a few pros and a lot of cons about this method
Plant harvesting and then processing - include how this method leads to deforestation as well as its large land requirements
The current method of carbon black - Include how it produces so many byproducts!
