SBIR Phase II: Engineering novel pigmented cyanobacteria for the use in the ink, printing and colorant industries

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is developing a safe and sustainable ink for the global ink industry. Approximately nine billion pounds of ink is produced annually around the world. Currently, ink is predominantly made of petroleum or inorganic chemicals mined from the earth. For example, carbon black is commonly used in traditional ink, which is derived from petroleum, not biodegradable, and toxic for humans. To solve this problem, nature has produced a multitude of molecules capable of replacing pigments currently utilized in ink. While many organisms that produce these alternatives are slow growing and require energy sources like sugar, photosynthetic microbes, such as cyanobacteria, are capable of being engineered in an efficient manner to produce pigments in ink formulations that are safe, renewable, and 100% biodegradable. This ink will be used by businesses for printing packaging, marketing material, and other printed products. Developing and integrating these ink products will decrease significantly the overall detrimental impact of traditional inks on the environment, and more importantly, human health. This SBIR Phase II project proposes to develop sustainable ink formulations using cyanobacteria as feedstock for producing optically black pigments for printing inks. This project will also engineer cyanobacteria cells capable of generating cellular pigments for a color spectrum of cyan, magenta, and yellow. These colored cyanobacteria will act as pigments that replace mined pigments found in traditional ink formulations, such as carbon black and cadmium. This project is developing a unique process in which extraction of pigments/dyes is not necessary, thus saving energy and reducing cost. Using cyanobacteria cells as pigments creates a renewable source of biomass for bio-products, as these organisms leverage sunlight, carbon dioxide, wastewater and land otherwise unsuitable for conventional agriculture to rapidly generate biomass. In addition to the development of colorful renewable cyanobacteria strains, this project will focus on manufacturing thousands of pounds of ink products for testing and consumer use as well as testing the applicability of these natural pigments to act as colorants in the food and textile industries. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.