Team:Brasil-USP/Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Why Startup?
Table of contents
Playgrounds, carpets and boots, although creative, together they do not represent not even 1% of scrap tire destination. [1] Every year, over 1 billion tires are manufactured all over the world which is equivalent a (equivalente a 100 milhoes de pessoas em peso). After approximately 3 years, these tires are discarded and new tires are produced, generating a huge amount of scrap tire accumulation. If stored above ground they may create fire hazards, harborage for pests, and aesthetic and property value impacts. However, when waste tires are buried, they consume valuable landfill space.[2] To properly address this residue, many countries, such as United States and Brazil, passed a law designates to tire manufactures to collect and manage the solid residue. [3] Unfortunately, major destination is incineration to generate tire-derived fuel (TFD) broadly used in cement industry for energy. [4] This process generates chemicals proven to be extremely detrimental to human health and environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons dioxins, carbon monoxide and sulfur oxides are some examples of carcinogens and toxic released compounds. [5] Specially in Brazil, seventy percent of collected tire is directed to incineration and the other thirty percent are reintroduced in limited markets. In this scenario, our project aim to make up the residue demand through a synthetic biology technology capable of transforming a waste into a high valued product to feed others chemical segments and as a final main product, a clean and sustainable jet-fuel.
Using a wild microorganism isolated from soil, the first step is to remove the sulfur bonds that covers the tire with no pollutant gases emission, generating a more flexible and easy to recycle material. In the second step, we designed an optimized bacterial DNA based system specific for polyisoprene degradation, the main tire component. It is capable of breaking long chains into smaller units that can be used as raw material for other processes. In our third reactor will be performed a single catalytic reaction to produce the jet-fuel. We also intend to use natural rubber from Hevea brasiliensis as renewable source for our fuel production. The remaining products with economic value of the whole process are: high quality raw material to input other industrial segment, jet fuel derived from tire waste, jet fuel derived from natural rubber and devulcanized rubber from tires.
[1] Rubber Manufacturers Association, 2014.
[2] Legislative Environmental Policy Office Study Conducted - Status of and Alternatives for the Management of Waste Tires in Montana, 1998.
[3] Environmental Protection Agency- State Scrap Tire Programs, a quick reference guide, United States, 1993.
[4] United States Environmental Protection Agency - Tire-Derived Fuel, 2005.
[5] Saleh Tawfik A., Gupta VK, Processing Methods - Characteristics and Adsorption Behavior of Tires Derived Carbons: A Review, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 2014.
Executive Summary
In this section it will be highlighted the main points about our company.
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Summary
Rubber Biotechnologies is an under development company in recycling rubber waste field that is responding to the need for scrap tires addressment to decrease solid residue accumulation and pollutant gases release. The company project was consolidated in 2015, from Brasil-USP iGEM team and has a biotechnology startup profile. The technology consists on genetically engineered microorganisms based on synthetic biology, capable of degradating rubber.
The Products
Devulcanized rubber
ODTD
Jet-fuel raw material
Manufacturing
NFJKANSKFANKSThe Market
NFJKANSKFANKSFinancing Required
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BusinessModel
The current “linear” approach to satisfying customers demand has been working for the last 250 years, when the resources are abundant and inexpensive. Companies hold high technologies to extract raw materials, manufacture, sell and ship, lying on the principles of “take, make, waste”. Although it has been very lucrative, it is no longer viable. According to US National Climate Assessment the projection for current growth model in the next two decades is a trillion-dollar loss for companies dependent on virgin non-renewable natural resources due volatility and increasing prices. There are a plenty of studies highlighting the increasing resource scarcity and mounting waste (the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Resource Panel (http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/), it is expected the total demand for limited resources to reach 400 percent overuse of Earth’s total capacity by 2050 (http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/uploads/Ecological_Footprint_Atlas_2010.pdf). Some recent initiatives were covered in the media this year, such as the international group of the seven major advanced economies in the World (G7) agreement to cut greenhouse gases by phasing out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agree-phase-out-fossil-fuel-use-end-of-century). The unsustainable scenario is very clear, the economic development and scarcity scenario are on a collision course. If nothing changes to address the situation, the economic and environmental impact will be devastating.
A business model must be implemented to drive future growth by radical improvement of resources use and productivity. The model is called circular economy and it has been being exploited by few visionary companies for decades. Its core is to create new value chains to decouple growth from the use of scarce and linear resource. It can be accomplished by extending product’s life, providing renewable energy, using recyclable inputs, recovering useful resources/energy out of disposed products, offering the product as a service and creating sharing platforms for possible product shared access or use.
A good example of circular economy on tire industry is Michelin, one of the world’s leading tire manufacturers, created a tire as a service platform in which customers can rent instead of buying tires. They pay per miles driven and do not have to worry about maintenance, which is performed by Michelin. By adopting this model, tire lifetime is increased and company gets motivated to keep giving a proper destination for the product.
Rubber Biotechnologies also adopted the circular economy as its business model. By recovering useful resources and energy out from tire waste, providing renewable energy from natural latex and extending tire life with a devulcanized product, the startup prioritizes long-term sustainability. In the following scheme it is shown how the developed technology has the potential to improve the tire cycle.
REFERENCIAS ARRUMAR