ENA-POLY

ENA-POLY stands for Earth Nurture Additive for rendering conventional plastics biodegradable.

Plastics are so useful that more and more is made every year. In 2015, 322 million tons of plastic were made. Worldwide, people have begun to object to plastic litter, as a result of the huge increases in plastic production. Recent findings have demonstrated that plastic litter is more than unsightly - it is fatal to a surprising amount of wildlife in the ocean. In fields, China has found that plastic film fragments result in ever lower farm yields, by preventing moisture from entering the soil.

There have been efforts to make plastic biodegradable since the 1970s. The first wave consisted of putting some starch filler in plastic. The result was that the starch biodegraded somewhat, but the plastic was unaffected.

The second effort was to put chemicals in plastic, oxodegradable chemicals that responded to heat or ultra-violet light by causing the plastic to oxidze somewhat, in the presence of oxygen.

This sometimes resulted in fragmented plastic, but no proof of ultimate biodegradation was ever established.

The third effort was to make plastic biodegradable was to make it out of plant materials. The commonest of these plastics, polylactic acid, does not biodegrade unless it is subjected to prolonged higher heat than occurs in nature. Some biobased plastics do biodegrade well in natural environments, but they are rather fragile, and are quite expensive compared to conventional plastics.

As a result of this problem, and the inadequacy of efforts to solve it, ENA-Poly was invented. ENA-Poly is mixed with thermoplastics while they are in the liquid phase. ENA-Poly harnesses the power of complex interactions in various microbial enzymatic systems to cause conventional plastics to biodegrade in moist, microbe laden environments including soil, landfills, and compost heaps.

ENA-Poly does not affect the properties of plastics made with it, except for making them biodegradable in suitable environments. ENA-Poly does not cause biodegradation in storage environments such as warehouses or kitchen shelves.

Treating conventional plastics with ENA-Poly is much less expensive than substituting expensive biodegradable bioplastics for conventional plastics.

Other companies have made efforts to develop additives to make conventional plastics biodegradable, but they have proved to work very slowly, over multiple years, and to to work only in environments is which there is no oxygen. Even landfills contain oxygen until a given depth of landfill has been buried for about a year. ENA works quickly, and it works in environments with or without oxygen, as long as there are microbes and moisture present.

ENA-Poly is highly effective for causing the biodegradation of the most troublesome plastic products - polyethylene and polypropylene films. Polyethylene and propylene films are used for everything from packaging and shopping bags to farming films, such as mulch films. These films are the most expensive and difficult plastic products to recycle, due to low weight per cubic meter, sorting issues, and contamination by food, soil, and other materials.

ENA-Poly is safe for people, and for the environment. It is composed entirely of

nutritional source and naturally secrete digestive enzymes and acids which in anaerobic conditions will biodegrade the plastic naturally into humus, biogas (CH4 & CO2) and water.
In aerobic conditions the remnants are humus, CO2 and water.

A different ENA product, ENA-PET, is under development for making PET (polyethylene terephthalate) biodegradable. PET is most commonly used for very lightweight, transparent plastic bottles.

Manufacturer : ENA Biotec,Ltd
KhaiEL GmbH and Earth Nuture from USA have started joint company named ENA Biotec, Ltd.(Under certification process)

ENA-Petro

ENA-Petro stands for Earth Nurture Additive for biodegrading petroleum-contaminated sites.

The first ENA product was ENA-Poly, an additive designed to make conventional plastics biodegradable in moist, microbe laden environments. During the development of this product, our company developed extensive proprietary knowledge of the biodegradation of other recalcitrant-to-biodegradation substances, including petroleum products. ENA-Petro is designed for insitu biodegradation of soil and ground water contaminated with raw petroleum, lubricating and cutting oils, gasoline (petrol,) kerosene (parafin,) and diesel.

In ground water bioremediation, ENA-Poly is injected into bores. In contaminated ground, ENA-Petro can be either injected into bores, or mixed with the soil using earth moving equipment. If a direction of ground water movement can be established, ENA is injected upstream, and the water is tested for contamination levels in downstream bores.

The method of biodegradation is by a complex of interacting microbial enzymatic systems, using either bacterial cultures, or in long-contaminated sites, native bacteria which are acclimated to the site. ENA operates by enhancing a complex sequence of microbial enzymatic systems in a community of commensal microbes which can biodegrade petroleum products in hydrocarbons of various carbon chain lengths, as well as benzene-ring containing cyclic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

A related product, ENA-PetroSlick, is in floating matrix form for biodegrading floating oil slicks.

If using bacterial cultures, water salinity and local temperature have to be taken into account: that is freshwater, brakish water, ocean, and tropical, temperate, or cold water must be specified.

Since gasoline and diesel oil quickly evaporate into the air when it is floating on water, is usual to treat only crude oil slicks and slicks of bunker oil used to fuel ships. These products are highly toxic, since they contain a large amount of toxic chemicals called polyaromatic hydrocarbons

(PAHs.) It is estimated that at least 2.3 million tons of oil are spilled into the oceans every year.

An important distinction between ENA-Petro and some other products is that it is completely non-toxic to the environment. Corexit, used used by BP in the 4 million ton Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is notoriously toxic - has been described as being 50 times more toxic than the crude petroleum that it was supposed to clean up. Dow's Triton X-100 is another highly toxic product used to disperse oil slicks.

Manufacturer : ENA Biotec,Ltd
KhaiEL GmbH and Earth Nuture from USA have started joint company named ENA Biotec, Ltd.(Under certification process)

ENA-Xenobio

ENA-Xenobio stands for Earth Nurture Additive for promoting the biodegradation of xenobiotic chemicals.
ENA Biotec Inc. is an innovative leader in promoting the biodegradation of substances which resist biodegradation.

ENA-Xenobio is able to promote the biodegradation of many contaminates in soil caused by manufacturing and storage of toxic chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, dyes, and organic chemical manufacturing. ENA-Xenobio can also be used to promote enhanced biodegradation in waste water systems which use microbes living in biofilms to decontaminate waste water.

Commonly, toxic xenobiotics contain multiple cyclic carbon groups and often nitrogen and / or chlorine. The average healthy person has traces of 167 toxic chemicals in their bodies, many of which are carcinogenic, and the older a person gets, the more toxic chemicals the person accumulates. Humans produce 400 million tons of hazardous waste every year. In just the EU, it is estimated by the European Commission that there are 2.5 million contaminated sites, and that it will cost trillions of Euros to clean these sites.

Traditional methods of decontamination are either of limited effectiveness, or high in cost. Some traditional techniques have a danger of adding toxins to the site, or spreading the contaminates to locations where they can do

more harm. The main traditional techniques consist of using high heat, UV light, reactive oxygen species, oxidation, chlorination, washing, the use of solvents or surfactants, and a combination of these techniques.

In contrast, ENA-Xenobio is non-toxic, low cost, natural, and it does not displace contaminants to other locations.

Dibenzo-p-dioxin - PAH related to dioxins
Chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin - Byproduct of manufacture of chlorophenols, hexachlorophene, and herbicides Methyl naphthalene - precursor of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plasticsMethylnaphthalene and 2-2,6-xylenol – precursor for poly(p-phenylene oxide) engineering resins
4-chloro-2-methylphenol – precursor for phenoxy herbicides
P-cresol - precursor for antioxidants
O-cresol – precursor for herbicides and pharmaceuticals
2,4-dichlorophenol – precursor for herbicides, bactericides, and fungicides
2,4,5-trichlorophenol – precursor for pesticides and fungicides
pentachlorophenol - herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, algaecide, and disinfectant, wood preservative
2,4-D - herbicide
2,4,5-T - herbicide
DDT - insecticide
Lindane - indecticide
3,4-dichloroaniline – precursor for insecticide
Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (aka dioxins) – combustion byproduct, herbicide precursor, PVC plastic precursor, bleaching, industrial precursor
Polychlorinated biphenyls (aka PCBs)– insulator and coolant for large electric equipment, lubricants, many industrial uses
2,4-Dinitrotoluene – precursor for polyurethane foams, many industrial uses
Anthenantrene – PAH, combustion byproduct

Dyes Polymeric dyes (poly R-481, poly B-411, poly Y606, remazol – dyes for textiles
brillant blue-R1) azodyes (sulfonated and non-sulfonated) – dyes for textiles
hydroquinone
BETX compounds – benzene, ethylbenzene, tolulene, xylenes – solvents, petrochemicals, gasoline
(petrol ) components
Napthalene – precursor for chemicals
Alkanes – fuel, precursor for many chemicals and products
2,4-dichorophenol (2,4-DCP) – herbicide precursor
cyanides – many uses
Chlorinated phenols such as 2,4,5-tricholorophenol and PCP are mineralized by WRF
2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) – explosive
Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) – explosive
octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine (HMX) - explosive
2,6-DANT – Many industrial uses; polyurethane foam, precursor for explosives, dyes, and automobile airbags
Aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, chlordane, lindane and mirex66 - insecticides
2,4,5-T and 2,4-D67,68, 2-chloro-4-ethylamine-6-isopropyl-amino-1,3,4-triazine (atrazine) – herbicides

Manufacturer : ENA Biotec,Ltd
KhaiEL GmbH and Earth Nuture from USA have started joint company named ENA Biotec, Ltd.(Under certification process)