Improving Sustainability and Efficiency in Horticulture with Degradable Lignin-Polymer Containers

mobius pbc USDA FY23 SBIR Phase II - Project Summary March 28th 2023 Improving Sustainability and Efficiency in Horticulture with Degradable Lignin-Polymer Containers mobius pbc USDA Phase II - Project Summary Proposal Title: Improving Sustainability and Efficiency in Horticulture with Degradable Lignin-Polymer Containers P.I.: Anthony Bova Ph.D. Proposing Organization: mobius pbc Proposal Topic: 8.13 - Plant Production and Protection (Engineering) With growing populations around the world our global food systems must grow to support a projected 9.7 billion people by 2050 increasing current food production by 70%. As if this problem wasn't hard enough growers must achieve this feat using practices that are productive in the short-term providing healthy and nutritious food and sustainable in the long-term reducing pollution and waste into the environment. One innovation that has helped growers improve yields for over 75 years is the use of plastic pots containers and trays. These low-cost durable products have been used to automate and standardize many processes such as plant germination and transportation to retailers and adoption has been widespread across agriculture and horticulture. In horticulture the promise of biodegradable bioplastics carry a massive benefit for plant health and sustainability but they are plagued by poor durability and high costs - generally 2-3x their petroleum counterparts. The US alone consumes over 5 billion petroleum-based plastic containers each year (750000 metric tons of plastic) resulting in $3.8 billion spent on containers and scalable solutions are needed to address this problem. There is an opportunity for a new bio-based material platform to produce a family of low-cost and biodegradable containers with a range of mechanical performance sustainability and beneficial plant health properties. Our goals for this Phase II project are to: identify lignin-polymer formulations that meet the manufacturing & technical specifications of our customers demonstrate equivalent or improved plant & soil health compared to petroleum-based containers and develop a comprehensive IP & commercialization strategy through the TABA program (Figure 1). To accomplish these goals we develop and test formulations of our materials for injection molding processes and evaluate these prototypes with manufacturing and industry partners. We will also conduct greenhouse trials with partners to evaluate the performance of these prototypes in real-world conditions. At the end of this project we aim to have at least 1 commercial contract to purchase a formulation for commercial-scale injection molding of containers demonstrating improved plant growth benefits and performing as well or better than petroleum-based plastics in a commercial greenhouse or field environment. Figure 1 - Overview of mobius Phase II Objectives and Work Plan