3D Printed Living Material Could Help Clean Up Pollution

With over 350 million metric tons of plastic waste generated globally each year, it is imperative that steps be taken to clean up, recycle, and recover parts of our world that have been inundated by pollution. One such pressing concern is the amount of pollutants in our water, where hazardous materials such as plastics make their way into rivers, lakes, oceans and other water supplies in their untold millions daily. Now, researchers at UC San Diego hope that a recently created, organic, 3D printed living material could prove to be part of the solution to cleaning up our world.

Under the working name of “engineered living material”, the decontamination creation is a 3D printed construction made of a seaweed polymer known as alginate combined with a genetically engineered cyanobacteria designed to remove select pollutants from its surroundings by producing enzymes that break down the structure of harmful materials into benign, non-harmful molecules. This combined mix of seaweed alginate and bacteria is then extruded through a 3D printer into structures that can be designed to float in water or be positioned in various environments.

Photo Credits: David Baillot/UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

“What’s innovative is the pairing of a polymer material with a biological system to create a living material that can function and respond to stimuli in ways that regular synthetic materials cannot,” explains research co-lead and nanoengineering professor at UC San Diego Jon Pokorski regarding the importance of the biological mixture. The all-in-one nature of the living material means that its construction and utility is quite efficient and the possibility for future products is promising. By the end of testing, the researchers settled on 3D printing a grid or waffle-shaped structure which held the benefit of providing the most nutrients to the bacteria while maximizing its decontaminating surface area.