{"id":125581,"date":"2021-07-27T23:22:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T06:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/scientists-develop-food-generator-that-turns-plastic-into-edible-protein"},"modified":"2021-07-27T23:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T06:22:21","slug":"scientists-develop-food-generator-that-turns-plastic-into-edible-protein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/scientists-develop-food-generator-that-turns-plastic-into-edible-protein","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Develop \u2018Food Generator\u2019 That Turns Plastic Into Edible Protein"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-develop-food-generator-that-turns-plastic-into-edible-protein.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Humanity has a plastic problem, but who said the problem couldn\u2019t also be tasty? Scientists are trying to come up with creative solutions to address the ever-growing issue every day, with some even <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/interestingengineering.com\/scientists-convert-plastic-bottles-into-vanillin-using-bacteria\" rel=\"dofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-id=\"embedded internal links\" data-type=\"link\" data-url=\"https:\/\/interestingengineering.com\/scientists-convert-plastic-bottles-into-vanillin-using-bacteria\">converting plastic bottles into vanillin using bacteria<\/a>. Most recently, two scientists have echoed this sentiment and won the $1.18 million (1 million euro) 2021 Future Insight Prize in the process by creating a food \u2018generator\u2019 concept that turns plastics into protein.<\/p>\n<p>The names behind the project, which was initially funded by a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) cooperative agreement award for $7.2 million over four years, are Ting Lu, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Stephen Techtmann, associate professor of biological sciences at Michigan Technological University.<\/p>\n<p>Their goal was to improve a process for converting plastic trash into protein powder and lubricants using a combination of chemicals and high heat (pyrolysis). The two scientists call their project a food \u2018generator.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity has a plastic problem, but who said the problem couldn\u2019t also be tasty? Scientists are trying to come up with creative solutions to address the ever-growing issue every day, with some even converting plastic bottles into vanillin using bacteria. Most recently, two scientists have echoed this sentiment and won the $1.18 million (1 million [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":621,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,19,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-chemistry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}