UC Davis Partners on Methane-Based Bioplastics

Researchers will engineer methane-consuming bacteria to make bioplastics easier and cheaper to purify, in collaboration with Mango Materials.

Updated on Nov. 3, 2026 in Life Sciences

Bold vector editorial illustration of a stainless-steel bioreactor vessel with small amber culture flasks at its base, rendered in flat teal and steel gray. — UC Davis and Mango Materials are partnering to engineer methane-consuming bacteria that make bioplastics easier and cheaper to purify. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

The University of California, Davis has partnered with Mango Materials to develop bioplastics produced by methane-consuming bacteria called methanotrophs. Yi Wang will genetically engineer these bacteria so the plastic they store is easier to recover and purify.

Why it matters

Recovering and purifying plastic from bacteria adds significantly to production costs, and reducing those costs could make methane-derived bioplastics more competitive with conventional plastics. The work also supports the development of domestic bioindustrial manufacturing.

Mango Materials' 5,000-liter bioreactor is connected to a wastewater treatment plant that supplies methane, and BioMADE estimates the U.S. bioindustrial economy could support at least 1 million jobs by 2030. Whether genetically engineered methanotrophs will lower downstream purification costs at that scale has not yet been demonstrated.

The players

University of California, Davis

A public research university in Davis, California, leading the project through researcher Yi Wang.

Mango Materials

A company that produces polyhydroxyalkanoate bioplastics using naturally selected bacteria and co-locates its factories with sources of waste methane.

BioMADE

An institute of Manufacturing USA focused on domestic bioindustrial manufacturing, which helps fund the collaboration.

The details

Methanotrophs are naturally occurring bacteria that consume methane and store biodegradable plastic inside their cells. Wang will develop CRISPR-Cas genome-editing tools tailored to these bacteria, which have far fewer established genetic tools than E. coli, and Mango Materials will test the engineered strains in small-batch cultures, lab-scale fermenters and its 5,000-liter bioreactor.

2030: BioMADE projects the U.S. bioindustrial economy could support at least 1 million jobs.

The Big Picture

The project extends CRISPR-Cas genome-editing, a technique developed largely in model organisms such as E. coli, to methanotrophs that have comparatively few established genetic tools. Applying it could expand the range of bacteria usable for industrial bioplastic production beyond conventional hosts.

If engineered methanotrophs lower purification costs, bioplastics made from waste methane could become cheaper to produce. The project remains at the research and testing stage, so no consumer products are established by the extraction.

The takeaway

Turning industrial waste methane into useful materials depends on making the production process cheap enough to compete. Improvements in how the bacteria store and release their plastic could determine whether that approach scales.