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. We took a tour of the Warwick Printing company in our hometown Lethbridge AB and learned about how the ink is used in the industry, we also learned from the owner Dave Warwick some of the important qualities of ink. More about the Warwick tour here.
Deciding our Project
After our initial research and our investigation into the industry and market we decided that we would do a project on ink. We were then needed to decide what sort of problems existed within ink production or usage. The cost breakdown of ink led us to decide to focus on the colorant portion of ink as it made up the majority of the cost. This led us to research colorants and how they are made and used. We found that there are a few different colorants, pigments, organic molecules, and inorganic salts or compounds. We found that the most used and in highest demand colorant was carbon black, which is the byproduct of burning petroleum for energy Fig. 1. We had found our problem! Harmful byproducts of carbon black production! We decided to combat this problem that we would produce a colorant of our own. We chose to produce four pigments that come from different plants or bacteria using synthetic biology Fig. 2.
Fig. 1 The process of carbon black production as a byproduct of burning petroleum for energy.
Fig 2. Our process of pigment production using synthetic biology and four constructs which will be put into bacterial cultures.
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 such as an apple tree or petunias. We have selected the genes that will allow us to have the optimal production of pigment from our bacteria and media. Our project is designed to solve the problem of harmful byproducts of ink colorant production, and it does just that. We can produce pigments using synthetic biology and extract and purify them with minimal byproducts including Carbon dioxide and other cellular debris. Our project will become more applicable as the world turns more and more to green energy. As the world starts to move away from burning fossil fuels for energy the source of carbon black will decrease, while the demand for colorants is ever increasing. This is where we come in, our project will be able to fill the need for colorants and that is where it will be most applicable. Our business plan and market analysis showed that as it stands we would not be able to make our project into a company on our own as we cannot compete with the market giants, but if we were able to somehow sell or licence our technology to a company then we might be able to get our project out into use in the industry. More about the business plan here.
