 we're back from the break. Jay and Pete have gone off to the bar to have a brusky or two and I'm here with Jan Yu from HNEI. We're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects which is biodegradable plastic. We hear so much about all the plastic in our oceans. They last for hundreds of years. Jan has been working for years and years on a biodegradable plastic that if it goes to the ocean or in the rivers it eventually decays and returns to what it was normally and he actually makes it out of biomass. So I'm very pleased welcome to the show Jan and very pleased that you've agreed to come in and tell us about you know one of these your technology that's really helping solve one of our major problems here both in Hawaii and the world. So welcome on board and first of all we have a the title is natural bioplastics and hydrogen char from woody biomass. So if we can haul up slide two please. Let's talk about what you call the carbon circular economy. So tell us about that Jan. Thank you Mitch for having me here. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about that and my research. You know I'm a technical person. I follow the policies you guys talking about. So here is a policy people are talking about is a carbon circular economy. So we because of the climate change growing because of the CO2 release all those kind of things. So basically it's very simple to understand that the carbon dioxide will be utilized to for tree and grow the trees and the plants those kind of things. So you can produce products wood products and then biomass. The biomass can be burned to generate the energy and then you generate CO2 but the CO2 can be recycled. So it will not cause CO2 concentration increases in air and that causes a climate change. So my research work is look at the additional step that we use the biomass as a feedstock to produce biopressics and hydrogen char. So hydrogen char can be used directly for energy production power our plants and the biopressics can be used for packaging purpose you know film rigid containers and after use they can be this you can be used burn for energy recovery and more importantly the biopressics can be biodegraded in rivers in oceans. So we avoided the problem of the so-called plastic pollution in ocean. So next slide please. Okay next slide. Yeah I have a question though before you get going on that slide let's just leave the slide up is just give us an idea of how long it would take a piece of your biodegradable plastic to actually degrade if it's you know in the water. Are we talking weeks month or years? Yeah so it depends on the conditions so in the in the in the marine waters the ocean condition environment is the most difficult for bacteria to grow and to degrade the polymers because of the temperature is low and nutrients is low. So in marine waters it takes about one month to two months basically and if it is yeah not too bad you know in six months it's definitely it's gone it's gone you cannot see them okay and then in the rivers for example in the streams or whatever they takes about one month it's completely gone okay so that it's kind of degradation is very fast so if it's in the industrial composting facility then takes one week or two weeks it's gone. Oh really wow that's very quick yeah that's awesome I can show you some biodegrades yeah biodegraded that's a real biodegradable material okay so what is biodegrades what does it actually turn into oh okay so basically yeah what are the components okay so this material is basically is made by microorganisms as a carbon reserve just like a starch accumulated in plant cells just like all your lipids in our seed so that's a kind of an unit so we take interestingly this type of material has a plastic thermoplasic property okay so they can be degraded and utilized by the microorganisms in the environment no so it's good question would it be degraded okay so if the microorganism has sufficient oxygen so the materials is degraded into CO2 carbon dioxide water and I think the bacteria will use this as a carbon source so they also generated some biomass cell mass bacteria microorganisms cell mass so that's just like a starch okay so and analogical conditions because there's no oxygen as for example at the bottom of the river or ocean over there then the the materials are degraded and and analogical conditions so it's just like some organic acids or massing or probably those kind of things depend on the microorganisms in the environment okay so let's flip up slide three then and talk about yeah second slide yeah so when we talk about the so-called carbon circular economy people use the biomass typically woody biomass from a forest manufacturing management or agriculture residues to fuel the power plants so we see that United States is a major expert exports those kind of wood pallets we export tons of those materials to Europe to Asia like Japan to power the to power the the plants and basically the biomass is used as a carbon neutral fuel okay so that is a relatively low energy because if you look at the the price of these wood pallets or solid wood fuel it's about 130 dollars per ton magical ton but if you look at the low biomass cost maybe go up to 60 dollars per ton so the the margin is not very high enough but still seems very marginably profitable okay so at the so next price next slide please so at UH we develop a novel so-called UH bio refinery technology that actually includes two major equipments the first equipment is called reactor so in this reactor we add the biomass like a sawdust and water and and the special conditions we do the hydrolysis so the two products coming out from the reactor what is called hard char so basically the sawdust is carbonized okay so hard char it's black black hard char and then we also have what's called a queer solution coming from this reactor now this is a very interesting thing because it contains many many we call it organic hydrolysis okay those are the very useful small molecules so we use they feed this solution to the second equipment that called a bio reactor so in this reactor we hide some microorganisms that can utilize those biomass hydrolysis in a queer solution to synthesize the polymers and then we can after finish that step and then we can recover the polymers as a product so next slide please yeah so that is a very uh a few pictures to show how the bioplastics from the woody hydrolysis so you can see the first picture shows our laboratory equipment we call a bio reactor so that's a queer solution is introduced into the reactor you can see there's a second picture show you the microorganisms because they are very small so and in electronic microscope you can see the individual cells and within those cells you can see those uh white granules those are the very interesting material we call the pha okay pha simple right pha so pha granules okay can be separated and purified into so called a micro granules now this very interesting material can be used to make uh sunscreen material for example when our industrial partners uh bio use this technology to produce a sunscreen that is environmental friendly because those granules uh after use people wash off and then they go to the ocean but they'll be degraded very quickly so will not cause plastic pollution in the ocean and of course this problem yeah this is a problem uh oh no no no i think hawaii has a ban on those sunscreen yes or some chemicals because of some chemicals i'm not very sure about that because i'm not in the research in this area but i know that uh united nations including the states uh in minlan they ban those so called micro plastics granules in those cosmetic and uh products okay so that's because of the micro yeah micro plastic pollution in water is a serious issue right that's that's because the fish eat it are ingested or not just fish but clams and crustaceans those are micro plastics it gets into the very yeah they are very small because the micro signs and they can get they are not degraded in the environment and then they will get into the full our food chain fish right and other food chain and then probably get into our human beings food stuff so that is a concern that the people ban those so called micro plastics used in the cosmetic but when we use those uh natural plastic granules in those cosmetic products they will not have this kind of problem because in the environment they are quickly degraded into the by the microorganisms in the environment right okay and of course that's a tremendous contribution yes yeah so and of course you can be as a plastic material you can heat it and then they'll be liquefied and then when they cool down it can be solidified again so you can make different shapes and forms and different stuff plastic packaging uh applications yeah yeah okay next slide please so in addition to the those so called bioplastics or natural bioplastics uh we have a major by-product called hydrochar that is from the first reactor so again this is a carbon neutral fuel which is very interesting because compared to the so I have a few comparison here about the co-lignite and the low biomass and hydrochar so you can see compared with the original low biomass like sawdust the hydrochar has a much higher heating value okay uh 40 percent more uh based on that and which is very close to the coal you know the heating value and then of course you can it can it's a carbon neutral okay so the people can use a hydrochar instead of biomass as a fuel solid fuel okay so can you also quick question though can you also use it as a soil amendment so that you actually you know to increase the productivity of the soil I know that Dr. Anthol was looking at biochar to as a soil amendment to improve the growth of plants is your hydrochar is similar uh no the hydrochar is a little bit different from the char okay uh the hard look uh the basically there are two different things it looks like a similar but in the water condition in our process condition low because low temperature low pressure and they are the the oxygen and hydrogen in the original biomass are removed by about 50 percent not 100 percent but in the micro enters process they use a very high temperature very high so basically you remove all the oxygen and hydrogen so whatever left that they call a biochar is a porous material okay very porous so the porous material when you mix with the soil it can help improve the soil structure so that is kind of so called a soil conditioner they use for that purpose and if you want to make that yes hydrochar can be further processed into make a biochar so that's different two two different things hard hard so people talk a lot about carbon sequestration so where you want to capture what what you're doing you're growing a plant and you're taking carbon dioxide out of the air and then you're running it through your process and you're actually recovering through your hydro uh your hydrochar you're actually recovering carbon so you can actually sequester it by just plowing it into the soil or take it to that next step that you talked about to make the biochar to actually improve the quality of the soil and at some point in time I think they may have some economic incentives for there is a value for for sequestering carbon yeah that's dependent on the the price of the CO2 like carbon dioxide you have the how much carbon dioxide there will be worth you know price but that's you so you're right so if you the hydrochar is not burned as a fuel instead you leave that as a solid carbon sequestration that's it's good so the CO2 means maintained and remained in the carbon is remained in the biomass solid biomass um yeah but you know for as you said that you can further process into the biochar to to to for the soil condition purpose maybe there's a market for that uh in addition to you know instead of using it as a fuel maybe you know well in the fullness of time as we want to really reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we want to just sequester the carbon part of that yeah so so so the technology will provide some options so it depends on your purpose you want to keep the CO2 as carbon as a solid phase like a carbon sequences or you want to condition the soil or you want to just use a solid fuel to power like a fuel power plants so that's that's that's it's a different options over there so in addition to the power plants is yeah okay next one please probably the last one already now this is the last one oh yeah so that's the last one it's called I give a very brief idea about the velalization of woody biomass so we start with a 100 kilogram biomass dry base okay so you have a largest section is a 47 percent will be recovered as a hard char and a 10 percent will be biplastic 5 percent will be rcm we call a residual cell mass okay residual cell mass so those are the three products coming out from the process and then another bigger one is a 38 percent where that basically is a CO2 or other losses whatever from the biomass loss so that is the overall mass balance of the process based on the 100 kilogram biomass and then the slides please show up the slides so then if you look at the current price of those products and the biomass so we can compare the cost and the potential price benefit from the value of the product by products so you can see yeah yeah so that way you can see the right figure show you okay for 100 kilogram biomass we pay six dollar okay that is a current high value we paid for biomass or farmers for that price uh six dollar for 100 kilogram biomass and then we look at the products first is a hard char uh we use same as for the fuel sort of fuel that about seven dollar and the 40 dollar will be coming from our biopress yes because right now the sales price and the biopress is about four dollar per kilogram so that is a very big increase of the value over there and then finally we have a small amount of residual cell mass that actually 80 percent of this residual cell mass is a proteins so we are looking for some kind of potential applications like uh like uh fish food or you know animal feed fish feed those kind of stuff for the protein so we can again we can get some small add a small value to the products so totally we'll be able to increase the value of the biomass by eight percent eight sorry eight fours eight times okay right so that is a very general comparison of the low biomass price and then the price of the products coming from the technology so what is uh what is the best feed stock for producing your bioplastics so you know traditionally what what what is what are you using okay so the best it's depend okay if we are talking about the the yield okay or easy to handle the best one is a glucose or starch right okay okay or sugar like brazil has a lot of sugar right they fermented as an ethanol yeah to prevent it for ethanol purpose so that so that one is uh that means a conventional stuff you know starch sugar some people even use oil the vegetable oil as a feed stock that is a good feed stock easy to handle available so that means your process is a simpler uh but people are talking about the competition with the food and the feed you know those kind of things right so the second one that's coming like there's those kind of non-food non-food feed stock that is more difficult to handle because you can see that we have to add extra one step like a set like a woody biomass or cerulose biomass or agricultural waste those cannot be used as a feed and a food and then you want to convert them into polymers by polymers so that is extra cost so depending on your your business you know your your your your resource you wanted to what kind of you know you wanted to produce okay so uh we're just about ready to wind up now so i just want to make one comment it is uh for people out there in the audience they're looking for new business opportunities i mean here we have some really well some really good technology that's ready to go and it's patented and uh jan and the university are um you know licensing uh i think you're some of some of these ideas are licensable are they not jan uh yeah this technology i have to and actually last slide we'll show some information about that you know the last one um yeah we have a student that postdocs for laboratory work i have you know we want to thank them for that for this absolute work and then we also need uh we have a financial support from biome i have a few words about biome the biome is uh it's an italian company it's a startup of the biotech startup startup they approached us about 10 years ago and they wanted to develop their business on the bioplastics business so um so they licensed the technology signed agreement with the uh university of hawaii and they also supported the research right now i think they i think there's opportunity there that any um third-party investment or people wanted to develop this so-called biomass the natural plastic and the woody from woody biomass this technology i think we still be able to negotiate talk about the yeah things right then what about the hydrochar the hydrochar you know basically hydrochar is a bi product so the idea is that okay because you are you have something left over actually the big chunk of the biomass almost 40 percent so you wanted to use this to increase the percent the prevent the value of your your product you know products right and uh that that is a potential thing so maybe some uh company are more interested in the hydrochar because this one is easier to be handled and processed than the low biomass particularly if you well particularly if you can sell carbon credits like you know the if people say oh well we'll offset carbon dioxide they're going out and planting a forest full of trees a bunch of trees but how can you actually measure the fact that people are actually doing it whereas if you're producing your hydrochar you can actually measure you know so many tons of hydrochar i've got it and i've come in there yeah you're right you're right you know that's if you have uh woody biomass you got those uh the 40 percent go to the polymers and then 40 percent left you have a six percent carbon you know still have a quite a lot of carbon uh installed in the face so you can you can you can probably you can you can use this as as as as kind of a profit yeah based on the carbon CO2 price well i just love talking about profits but we've come to the end of our time i told you it would go fast so jen thank you so much yeah thank you yeah you know demonstrating that you know the university and you in particular in hdmi are solving today's problems and uh there's businesses to be had out there so well done and thank you very much and uh thank you for appearing on the show so we're not together so i'll do a little handshake across yeah okay yeah well have a good it's a good day thank you so much yeah thank you that winds us up uh we're winding up today and uh we'll be back next wednesday with another guest i haven't actually found anybody yet but i will always do and uh thank you so much for listening to hawaii the state of clean energy aloha