Genecis is converting food waste into 3D printing filaments

Genecis Bioindustries Inc. is a young Canadian company that uses various advanced technologies to convert food waste into PHA, biodegradable plastics obtained by bacterial fermentation. These materials can be converted into 3D printing filaments, which could eventually lead to more environmentally friendly parts. Indeed, PHA is a plastic that degrades completely in nature in one year and in less than ten years in a marine environment. We met Michael Willamson, Polymers Manager at Genecis, to learn more about the manufacturing process of these PHAs and their impact on the 3D printing industry as well as on general manufacturing.

3DN: Can you present the company and your connection to 3D printing?

Genecis Bioindustries Inc. is a bio-cleantech company that up-cycles food waste into higher value materials. The first product line we are commercializing is polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), a fully biodegradable polymer that readily degrades in marine and terrestrial environments within a year and has superior properties to conventional plastics such as polypropylene and polyethylene. Specifically, PHAs have the following physical/ chemical characteristics biocompatibility, low water permeability, and high thermal-resistance. Additionally, PHAs can be blended with various petroleum plastics and can be easily recycled to form composite resins. An excellent application for PHAs is 3D printing filaments, which can be used in combination with PLAs, ABS, or starch-based bioplastics, offering better physical characteristics to printed end-products.

The Genecis team

3DN: How did you get the idea of transforming food waste into bioplastic?

Luna Yu, the Founder of Genecis, conducted significant research into anaerobic digestion and realized the inherent unprofitability of the process and that the overall process could be split into two major microbial fermentation steps. The first step was a relatively quick process that produced an intermediate that could be fed to a specialized set of bacteria that could eat carbons and produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). PHAs are a family of high-quality biodegradable polymers with functionalities superior to commodity plastics and hundreds of applications in a variety of industries.