Team:Brasil-USP/Description

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Project Description

Brasil-USP team`s 2015 project is to develop an innovative and sustainable solution for a significant environmental problem: accumulation of waste tires. Current recycling techniques demand high energy consumption, and are completely overwhelmed by the annual amount of rubber waste. In addition, natural rubber degradation may take up to 1000 years. We aim to accelerate this process by genetically engineering microorganisms to express and secrete two crucial enzymes for the degradation of natural rubber: RoxA (Rubber oxygenase) and Lcp (Latex clearing protein),. Tires and several other products, however, are composed by vulcanized rubber, which ensures its durability and increase its elasticity and strength. In this regard, for vulcanized rubber degradation, the project may include a pre-treatment, which uses Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, bacteria that naturally devulcanizes rubber. Both of these processes will be scaled up in bioreactors. The major resulting compound of the designed process is ODTD (12-oxo-4,8-dimethyl-trideca-4,8-diene-1-al), a triisoprene unit that can be turned into products with high commercial interest. Theoretical studies performed by our team indicate that it is possible to chemically or enzymatically transform this molecule into a fuel or a new polymer. In this year’s project, we propose a mechanism to alter this molecule into a highly functional compound. Consequently, besides enabling faster rubber degradation and decreasing final pollutant emission, our project also grants the final product a considerable economic interest.

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Inspiration

See how other teams have described and presented their projects:

• Imperial
• UC Davis
• SYSU Software