Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered bacteria that creates ethylene, vital to plastics manufacturing, as a byproduct of metabolising sulphur which is required to survive.

According to a report in iNews, US scientists believe that this discovery could radically change the way that plastics are manufactured without needing fossil fuels.

“We may have cracked a major technological barrier to producing a large amount of ethylene gas that could replace fossil fuel sources in making plastics,” said Justin North, of Ohio State University.

He added that there was still a lot of work to do in developing these strains of bacteria before they would be able to produce significant quantities of ethylene gas needed for industrial levels of plastic production.

Ethylene is used by the chemical industry in the production of nearly all plastics, and currently, oil or natural gas is used to produce the chemical, but it also needs oxygen as part of the process.

“Oxygen plus ethylene is explosive, and that is a major hurdle for using it in manufacturing. But the bacterial system we discovered to produce ethylene works without oxygen and that gives us a significant technological advantage,” said Professor Robert Tabita, at Ohio State.

Ethylene is a natural plant hormone, which in the right amounts is essential for the growth and health of plants, but it can be harmful to plants in high quantities.

Kelly Wrighton, associate professor of soil and crop science at Colorado State University, told that the discovery may also shed light on the previously unexplained phenomena of large deposits of ethylene that accumulates in waterlogged soils, leading to crop damage, and hopefully lead to treatments to prevent this in the future.

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