Tired of leftovers?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Current food waste disposal methods can lead to greenhouse gases and air pollution.
Beenish Saba and team at Ohio State University found a disgusting solution.
Bacteria CAN turn food into USEFUL lab chemicals like acetate, butanol, and ethanol.
But they ramped it up by mixing dairy waste with the bacteria C. carboxidivorans and C. beijerinckii and applying electricity.
They found that mixing different bacteria could change what chemicals were made. And changes in electricity could increase production of butanol by twelve-hundred percent!
Bacteria get food, while we get scientific supplies?
I guess one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure! Blech.
Reference: Saba,B., Akinola, S.A, Christy, A.D., et al. Biomanufacturing of early platform chemicals from industrial processing food waste using mono- and co-culture electrofermentation,
J Environ Chem Eng. 13, 5,(2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2025.117732