Preliminary Investigation of Upcycling Polylactic Acid 3-D Printing Waste to Candidate Single-Cell Protein Feedstock
Polylactic acid (PLA) is the most common extrusion-based distributed 3-D printing material. Unfortunately, large amounts of PLA are wasted from failed prints, support materials, material changes for multi-color printing, and poorly designed iterative prototypes. To overcome this waste challenge, distributed recycling with recyclebot technology is used to convert 3-D printing waste back into filament. This process can only be repeated five times before serious mechanical degradation of the resulting materials is observed. To overcome these challenges at the end-of-life of PLA 3-D printing material, this preliminary study explores a new approach that uses hydrolysis of PLA to create a candidate single-cell protein (SCP) feedstock that can be converted to human-edible food after required safety validation. Three concentrations of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) are tested for their ability to perform hydrolysis on PLA at room temperature using readily accessible equipment and chemicals. The solution is then neutralized, and yeast is grown in an open-source bioreactor, dried, and quantified to determine the preliminary yield of SCP. The results show a clear positive correlation between PLA degradation efficiency with higher NaOH concentration and yeast biomass production. The average performance of the 0.33 g NaOH/g PLA treatment resulted in an 8.5-fold yeast biomass increase. In summary, the current bench-scale process has proven technically viable and may be an economically justified method of yeast production on the household scale using PLA waste as a starting material. The dominant cost is energy, not reagents, which also lends the positive early results to future safety investigation using a scaled-up bioreactor.
See also
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- Feeding Everyone No Matter What - The full book main page
- David Denkenberger and Joshua Pearce, Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe , 1st Edition, Academic Press, 2015
- Free Preview: Google books
- Cover on Academia
- Facebook page
- Resilient foods for preventing global famine: a review of food supply interventions for global catastrophic food shocks including nuclear winter and infrastructure collapse
- Alternative Foods as a Solution to Global Food Supply Catastrophes
- Resilience to global food supply catastrophes
- Feeding Everyone if the Sun is Obscured and Industry is Disabled
- Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions for Alternate Food to Address Agricultural Catastrophes Globally
- Feeding Everyone: Solving the Food Crisis in Event of Global Catastrophes that Kill Crops or Obscure the Sun
- Food without sun: Price and life-saving potential
- Cost-effectiveness of interventions for alternate food in the United States to address agricultural catastrophes
- Micronutrient Availability in Alternative Foods During Agricultural Catastrophes
- Preliminary Automated Determination of Edibility of Alternative Foods: Non-Targeted Screening for Toxins in Red Maple Leaf Concentrate
- Open Source Software Toolchain for Automated Non-Targeted Screening for Toxins in Alternative Foods
- Scaling of greenhouse crop production in low sunlight scenarios
- Potential of microbial protein from hydrogen for preventing mass starvation in catastrophic scenarios
- U.S. Potential of Sustainable Backyard Distributed Animal and Plant Protein Production During & After Pandemics
- Global distribution of forest classes and leaf biomass for use as alternative foods to minimize malnutrition
- Long-term cost-effectiveness of interventions for loss of electricity/industry compared to artificial general intelligence safety
- Long term cost-effectiveness of resilient foods for global catastrophes compared to artificial general intelligence safety
- Rapid repurposing of pulp and paper mills, biorefineries, and breweries for lignocellulosic sugar production in global food catastrophes
- Nutrition in Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios: Envisioning Feasible Balanced Diets on Resilient Foods
- Methane Single Cell Protein: securing protein supply during global food catastrophes
- Killing two birds with one stone: chemical and biological upcycling of polyethylene terephthalate plastics into food
- How Easy is it to Feed Everyone? Economic Alternatives to Eliminate Human Nutrition Deficits
- Quantifying Alternative Food Potential of Agricultural Residue in Rural Communities of Sub-Saharan Africa
- Yield and Toxin Analysis of Leaf Protein Concentrate from Common North American Coniferous Trees
- Toxic Analysis of Leaf Protein Concentrate Regarding Common Agricultural Residues
- Towards Sustainable Protein Sources: The Thermal and Rheological Properties of Alternative Proteins
- How we can mine asteroids for space food
- Moving the Open-Source Broadly Reconfigurable and Expandable Automation Device (BREAD) Towards a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) System
- Effects of Spectral Ranges on Growth and Yield in Vertical Hydroponic–Aeroponic Hybrid Grow Systems for Radishes and Turnips
- Optimizing Agrivoltaic Shading for Climate-Resilient Crop Production: Amaranth Performance Under Current and Future Climatic Scenarios
- Lighting Energy and Revenue Analysis in an Agrivoltaic Agrotunnel for Lettuce and Swiss Chard Production
- Agrivoltaic Lettuce Production Under Future Climates: A Sustainable Strategy for Optimizing Food and Energy Yields
- Preliminary Investigation of Upcycling Polylactic Acid 3-D Printing Waste to Candidate Single-Cell Protein Feedstock
Additional Information
[edit source]- ALLFED
- Dave Denkenberger Publications
- OSE Wiki "Synfood" (i.e. protein and other dietary components from microbial organisms fed on gas or other hydrocarbons)
Davos IDRC Conference
[edit source]- Feeding Everyone if Industry is Disabled
- Providing Non-food Needs if Industry is Disabled
- Vitamins in Agricultural Catastrophes
- Integrative Risk Management for Catastrophe Destroying 10-20% of Global Food Supply
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| License | CC-BY-SA-4.0 |
| Organizations | Free Appropriate Sustainable Technology, Western |
| Cite as | J.M.Pearce (2026). "Preliminary Investigation of Upcycling Polylactic Acid 3-D Printing Waste to Candidate Single-Cell Protein Feedstock". Appropedia. Retrieved June 12, 2026. |
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