One for the long road

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 15, 2023 | Science

J in science stands for joules and, hence, power. You see a lot of J in Ram.

Well, I’m not alluding to the legendary Hindu god king, but a vehicle.

Stellantis, the American car manufacturer, has just unveiled a new car called Ram. Again, no reference (or reverence) to Lord Rama, but the horned animal that can headbutt its way through.

Ram has set a new record. It has a heck of a lot of ‘J’. It has the world’s heaviest and most powerful vehicle battery.

The battery weighs more than some small cars. It can hold 229 kWhr of energy — for perspective, a Tata Nexon has a 40.5 kWhr battery.

The 2025 Ram 1500 REV, expected to be available for purchase in 2024, is indicative of the shape of things to come in the automotive sector. Massive battery packs capable of charging in a jiffy and running cross-country distances are becoming the norm. Ram’s battery can run 800 km on a single charge and can be charged in ten minutes flat. The battery is so powerful that reviews have said it can power a house during a storm or light up a tailgate party.

The vehicle was unveiled last week at the New York International Auto Show. The price has not been disclosed yet, but a good guess would be that the vehicle is meant for people whose pockets reach their ankles.

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Probiotics as net-zero ally

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 15, 2023 | Science

‘Probiotics’ — microorganisms that confer a benefit on the host — are common to many kinds of food such as milk and yoghurt.

For some years now, a Chennai-based company, ProKlean Technologies, has been successfully using probiotics for industrial applications. The company uses a ‘community of bacteria’, as opposed to a single species, which has some benefits.

Now it is becoming clear that industrial use of probiotics has another benefit — reducing carbon footprint.

Typically, jobs such as de-waxing grey fabric to ensure they absorb dyes better, stain removal, treatment of textile effluents, odour elimination, and bleaching of paper involve the use of chemicals.

Community work

“A third-party, cradle-to-grave carbon footprint evaluation of our typical product, compared with the chemical equivalent that we replace, shows a 75 per cent reduction in carbon footprint,” says Dr Sivaram Pillai, the co-founder and Director (R&D) of the 11-year-old ProKlean Technologies.

ProKlean’s use of a consortium of microbial species, rather than a single species as in other fermentation systems, turned out to be a great innovation because, in a community, bacteria tend to help each other. Basically, the metabolite produced by one species becomes a nutrient for another species.

“It is a dynamic and constantly evolving milieu,” says Pillai.

About 90 per cent of the species in the consortium used by ProKlean belongs to the genus Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. The fermentation is carried out in non-aseptic conditions as against the aseptic conditions used in typical fermentation systems.

Further, the fermentation is carried out in ambient conditions (in a hot city like Chennai) while typical fermentation systems require maintaining a constant temperature. This saves energy. “Since the majority of the species in the culture we were using were Lactobacillus, similar to those in milk, we reasoned that we could also try our fermentation at room temperature. We developed simple methods and procedures over a couple of years to keep out contamination and perfected the protocols we use today,” says Pillai

Low-cost process

ProKlean’s plant uses Sintex tanks for the fermentation process, as opposed to the stainless-steel tanks needed in typical fermentation systems. Downstream concentration and purification steps have been eliminated as the entire broth at the end of the fermentation becomes the final product, leading to a considerable reduction in capital cost. More importantly, there is hardly any effluent discharge.

As such, the ProKlean process is a low-cost, low-energy (and hence low carbon footprint), and zero-pollution one.

Some estimates suggest that less than 5 per cent of all microbes are harmful to humans. Of the rest, probably less than 5 per cent are considered beneficial and the rest neutral. Scientists have found that many different species of microbes live together in nature (including human bodies) and communicate using signal chemical molecules. They support each other by sharing nutrients required for growth and survival. When harmful or pathogenic bacteria outnumber the good ones in any milieu, the situation turns ugly; and when good bacteria outnumber the bad ones, the situation turns pleasant. Therefore, by manipulating the good bacteria to do useful work, one can employ many ‘neutral’ bacteria too.

Pillai says that after a dip in business during the pandemic, sales are picking up again and have tripled over the last two years to reach around ₹50 crore last year — this is expected to double again in 2023-24. So far, the company has raised $6 million from The Chennai Angels, Infuse Ventures and Siana Capital and expects to raise another $3.6 million soon.

Currently the bulk of its customers are in the textile and paper industries, but the company is to soon get into wastewater treatment (using bacteria).

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Rare diseases spark an unusual solution

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 15, 2023 | Science

An estimated 96 million Indians are affected by ‘rare diseases’, for which drugs have either not been discovered or, if there is a drug, it is way too expensive. ‘Rare diseases’ (RD) — which affect a small percentage of the population — constitute a major problem in India, and remain lurking under the radar.

There are an estimated 7,000 RDs in the world, but fewer than 5 per cent of these have an approved drug for treatment. Another estimate says there are 450 RDs in India.

The government is seized of the problem but does not have a solution. In 2021, the government came out with a National Policy for Rare Diseases (following an earlier version from 2017), which describes the problem in detail, and speaks of providing financial assistance to the affected and asking Indian research laboratories to engage with RDs. It notes that “for a long time, doctors, researchers and policymakers were unaware of rare diseases and, until very recently, there was no real research or public health policy” concerning RDs.

Noting that fewer than 10 in a hundred patients receive disease-specific treatment, the NPRD document says that for a child weighing 10kg, the cost of treatment could vary from ₹10 lakh to ₹1 crore a year, and the treatment may be lifelong.

Repurposed drugs

The typical approach to RDs among doctors is to either dip into medical literature for a treatment clue or ask colleagues if they have come across something similar. Both approaches are fraught with risks, says Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, Director, Gleneagles Global Hospitals, Chennai. Medical literature only provides information about (the few) cases that were successfully treated.

Two researchers — Dr Khujith Rajueni of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Poona College of Pharmacy, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune; and Dr Mohua Chakraborty Choudhury of DST Centre for Policy Research, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru — have explored the viability of using repurposed drugs for rare diseases. “Repurposing drugs used for other common conditions has been considered an essential alternative for RDs due to their cost-effectiveness and reduced timeline, resulting in higher success rates than novel drugs,” they say in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper titled ‘Assessing the availability of repurposed orphan drugs in India’, published in the preprint server Medrxiv.org.

(In an email to Quantum, Dr Choudhury cautioned that “the paper is under review and may undergo major changes.)

Drugs used for RDs are known as ‘orphan drugs’. Drugs repurposed for treating RDs are called ‘repurposed orphan drugs’, or RODs. Rajueni and Choudhury have looked at the availability of RODs, their likely uses, and the need for regulations.

Generic giant

The paper notes that India has a vast potential to use RODs as it is the biggest global manufacturer of generic medicines. “Many RODs out of the exclusivity period are possibly manufactured and available in India and used for other conditions,” the authors say. Further, the patent regime in India disallows evergreening of pharmaceutical patents — namely protection of incremental changes in previously approved drugs. This will enable generic manufacture of many RODs in India. There is also a provision for ‘subsequent new drug application’ for approval of an already approved new drug (within four years) with new claims, namely indications, dosage, dosage form, and means of administration.

Which of the generic medicines could be RODs? The Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) does not give the ‘orphan’ label to any drug. Rajueni and Choudhury picked 1,033 designated orphan drugs from the US FDA list and culled out 279 as RODs. Their investigation showed that 170 of these were in the CDSCO list. They further researched to see how many of the rest were found in other sources such as Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP), the Food Safety and Standards Regulations (2016), and the Ayush ministry website. This led them to another 42. Thus, 212 of the drugs in the FDA list could be RODs in India — the other 67 would need to be imported.

Noting that “there is an absence of a dedicated orphan drug approval system or information portal in India”, the authors say that there has been no study to assess the availability of orphan drugs in India. As such, the information they dredged out could “guide the industry and researchers to identify drug candidates for which generics can be launched in India”.

Dr Swaminathan stresses the need for an international database on RDs and the possible RODs. The work of Rajueni and Choudhury is perhaps the first step in that direction.

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Custom-made nano filter

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 15, 2023 | Science

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, led by Dr Abhijit Patra, have developed a novel method to produce free-standing crystalline nano porous organic films that can separate toxic organic micro-pollutants from water.

Membrane separation is a widely used technique in industry for separating and purifying various substances. The membranes used are usually made of porous material, with the pore size being an important factor in determining their filtration. Scientists have been researching various types of porous material for years. Recently, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as promising porous material for membrane-based separation.

COFs are two-dimensional or three-dimensional crystalline porous organic polymers that have unique advantages over other porous material because their structures and functions can be precisely designed. “These materials are lightweight, highly thermally stable, and permanently porous, making them an excellent choice for membrane separation applications,” says a press release.

“The researchers at IISER Bhopal have demonstrated the transformation of an organic imine cage molecule into a free-standing COF film,” it says. The films were nano porous — that is, the pores were a hundred thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Lab-grown bone

Bikramjit Basu, Professor at the Materials Research Centre, and Hardik J Pandya, Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, recently developed a tool that uses electrical stimulation to grow mouse bone cells in a culture dish. This technology could pave the way for making better implants that can be integrated with fractured bones.

Bones are piezoelectric, meaning they store electric charge when subjected to mechanical stress. This charge accumulation can be useful.

Basu and Pandya prepared a composite material called polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) base mixed with barium titanate and carbon nanotubes. They used this as a medium to grow mouse bone cells.

“PVDF is electroactive — its shape and size can change in response to electric charge,” says an article in IISc’s newsletter Kernel. “This medium can therefore mimic the environment inside our body, where piezoelectric bones can undergo growth and modulation in response to accumulation in which the cells are grown in the presence of an electric field, active for 10 minutes a day.”

Membrane’s second coming

The Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, is giving a second life to discarded reverse osmosis membranes used in desalinating seawater.

They can be used for low-salinity brackish water desalination, wastewater treatment, says CSMCRI. They can also be used for partial substitution of the original application “by enhancing the flow rate but maintaining the salt rejection performance”.

The rejuvenated membrane costs just 15-20 per cent of the cost of new membranes. The technology is ready for transfer to industry. “It is important from an environmental perspective to extend the lifecycle of membrane elements since membrane waste is a hazardous polymeric waste,” says CSMCRI.

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Supercritical carbon dioxide can flush out oil from depleting wells

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 15, 2023 | Science

The best way to neutralise carbon dioxide emissions is to bury them underground, preferably in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. Since carbon dioxide also helps by flushing out the oil or gas, these reservoirs are ideal solutions for putting away the mischief-making gas. It is estimated that a barrel of oil when burnt emits 0.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide; correspondingly, 0.3-0.6 tonnes of the gas can be sequestered per barrel extracted — making hydrocarbons carbon-neutral.

All of this has been known for some time, but researchers at IIT-Madras have now come up with some improvements. They have found that supercritical carbon dioxide can be a good agent for simultaneous carbon dioxide sequestration and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) from depleted reservoirs when the gas is used along with surfactants in a ‘surfactant-alternating gas (SAG) injection’ approach. (Above a certain temperature and pressure, carbon dioxide acquires properties that are midway between gas and liquid — denser and easy to pump — known as supercritical state.) In this process, carbon dioxide gas is injected in the reservoir, where it becomes supercritical, followed by injection of water or surfactant solution.

The study shows that the use of supercritical carbon dioxide for EOR resulted in greater storage of carbon dioxide for both water-alternating gas (WAG) and SAG approaches. However, SAG performed better at all pressures and temperatures as surfactant solution alters the interfacial tension between the oil and water phases, leading to a higher oil recovery percentage and more effective storage of carbon dioxide. The researchers also found that the reservoir pressure and temperature had a strong effect on the flow dynamics.

This method not only promises improved recovery of oil but also safe, enhanced, and permanent storage of carbon dioxide gas emitted from human and other anthropological activities, for both WAG and SAG approaches, says Prof Jitendra S Sangwai of IIT-M.

The use of supercritical carbon dioxide reduces oil viscosity, induces in situ swelling of the oil, and reduces the interfacial tension of the in-situ fluid system.

Sangwai explains that while carbon dioxide is injected into the wells, “the depleted oil and gas reservoir conditions are such that the injected gas becomes supercritical in the reservoir, making the EOR and carbon dioxide sequestration process much more favourable. Further, normal carbon dioxide is not miscible with oil or water, leaving the boundaries at fluid-fluid interfaces quite distinct. The supercritical carbon dioxide helps solubilise the oil to interact better with the reservoir rock for improved carbon dioxide sequestration,” he said.

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‘Biotransform’ plastic back to earth

by Hansraj Agrawal | Apr 2, 2023 | Science

How long will your plastic grocery bag take to disintegrate fully? Two hundred years? Five hundred? Try asking Polymateria CEO Niall Dunne and you’ll get his honest answer: No one knows for sure. “We know that plastics break down into micro plastic and nano plastic very quickly. Do nano plastics last in our biological cycles for 500 years… 1,000 years? We don’t have that data. We know it’s bad and that it lasts for multiple generations.”

Polymateria has created a new technology called biotransformation, which, it says, can tackle the global plastic pollution pandemic. While products that use this technology can, and should be recycled, they will fully biodegrade on land within two years, leaving no microplastics or toxins behind.

Dunne explains: “Plastics is everyone’s material and remains very affordable compared to alternatives like glass, aluminium and paper. Pure economics dictates that 3-4 billion people around the world use plastics.”

Bespoke degradation

Polymateria’s technology allows for a bespoke — or customised — approach to plastics, depending on the end use.

For example, the company’s formulation for bread packaging material can hasten the biodegradation process. For more rigid containers that are reused, the activation could start later.

The reason all plastic becomes macro plastic, and then nano plastic is because the hard crystalline region of the polymer structure is impossible to degrade. So, the Polymateria team looked at the crystallinity.

“We focused on how you ultimately need to transform the plastic into a wax-like state, regardless of the environmental conditions you’re in.”

The technology has to work irrespective of whether it is dark, cold, warm or hot outside; whether humidity is high or low. “Once the time is up, the polymer is transformed into a wax by destroying the crystallinity.”

The mechanisms that enable this process include Norrish chemistry — an intrinsic part of keto-aldehydes reactions.

Dunne explains that these are “very high-energy reactions that are essential to break apart the carbon-carbon bonds.”

The breakage of these bonds is key. “This is where a lot of other technologies failed because they ended up with just oxidative chemistry that you and I can achieve; we can just add salt to plastic to create an oxidising effect; but it leaves the crystallinity and those carbon-carbon bonds intact, which is why you’re just risking exacerbating the creation of microplastics.”

Once these bonds are broken, the reaction gives rise to a spectrum of organic compounds that bacteria, microbes and fungi can feed on.

The industry also has independent data to validate the process.

“There’s a network of ISO-accredited laboratories under the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation scheme. AIMPLAS in Spain is one of the most recognised, whereby the technology has been tested under mesophilic or ambient conditions, directly correlated to the real world.”

At the recent Asian Polymer Association Conference in Goa, Polymateria announced it had been able to get rigid polypropylene containers back to nature as quickly as in 230 days.

“That’s your carbon becoming greater than 90 per cent carbon dioxide, with only water or biomass left.”

For the packaging major Toppan, Polymateria was able to demonstrate biodegradation of biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film in 176 days, leaving behind no microplastics or toxic residue.

Food safety

Now, a consumer is bound to ask whether the formulation added to food packaging material may end up contaminating the food?

Says Dunne, “It is important that the plastics we treat have to return to nature without any environment issues. We have to show nil acute or chronic effects.”

He says it’s not just Polymateria’s technology, but the actual packaging that also matters.

“Product stewardship is a big part of how we work across the value chain to make sure these norms are complied with.”

From the packaging company to the brand, to make sure that all inks, all materials, all additives used in the manufacturing process are taken into account.

“We have independent data, as per OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) standards, comprising acute and chronic ecotoxicity tests to show no impact to nature; as well as pass the FDA test for food contact in the US, and its equivalent in Europe, to show that the materials are recognised as safe. From a formulation perspective, there’s no toxic substance, there’s nothing nasty. It’s all natural ingredients including oils and rubbers; multiple materials that we use in different permutations and combinations.”

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