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

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为全球油墨行业开发一种安全和可持续的油墨。全世界每年大约生产90亿磅墨水。 目前，墨水主要由石油或从地球上开采的无机化学品制成。例如，传统油墨中常用的炭黑，它来源于石油，不可生物降解，对人体有毒。为了解决这个问题，大自然已经产生了大量的分子，能够取代目前在油墨中使用的颜料。虽然许多产生这些替代品的生物生长缓慢，需要糖等能源，但光合微生物（如蓝细菌）能够以有效的方式进行工程改造，以生产安全，可再生和100%可生物降解的油墨配方中的颜料。这种油墨将被企业用于印刷包装，营销材料和其他印刷产品。开发和整合这些油墨产品将大大减少传统油墨对环境的整体不利影响，更重要的是，对人类健康的影响。该SBIR第二阶段项目提出使用蓝藻作为原料开发可持续的油墨配方，用于生产印刷油墨的光学黑色颜料。该项目还将设计能够产生青色，洋红色和黄色色谱的细胞色素的蓝藻细胞。这些有色的蓝藻将作为颜料，取代传统油墨配方中的矿物颜料，如炭黑和镉。该项目正在开发一种独特的工艺，其中不需要提取颜料/染料，从而节省能源并降低成本。 使用蓝细菌细胞作为色素为生物产品创造了可再生的生物质来源，因为这些生物体利用阳光，二氧化碳，废水和土地，否则不适合传统农业快速产生生物质。除了开发色彩鲜艳的可再生蓝藻菌株外，该项目将致力于生产数千磅的油墨产品，供测试和消费者使用，并测试这些天然颜料在食品和纺织工业中作为着色剂的适用性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

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.