Brief Description
Intropic Materials is developing truly compostable plastic and other self-degrading products that can be composted or perfectly recycled. The company combines the performance of proteins with a patented stabilization technology to build better materials that address the world's plastic waste problem.
Enzymes are nature’s chemists. They handle the reactions that let life happen, can be engineered for our purposes, and can even break down plastics! However they tend to struggle outside of their comfort zone, the cell. This limits our ability to use them in applications. To fix that, we developed nanoprotectants that keep the proteins stable and active in foreign environments. This enables use in a wider range of solvents, and thermal processing to incorporate them into plastics. It’s like PPE for Proteins. Once embedded in plastics, the stabilized enzymes retain their activity without compromising the inherent material properties. From self-degrading plastics to clean manufacturing and biosensors, our platform unlocks potential for proteins.
Founder and CEO Aaron Hall decided to found Intropic Materials while earning his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley. He recognized that the groundbreaking research his group was doing at the lab bench, if brought to market, could have massive impact from both sustainability and economic perspectives.
Timeline
- 2020. Company founded.
Inventors
Brian Panganiban, Christopher DelRe, Junpyo Kwon, Tao Jiang, Ting Xu