frakktal

frakktal develops high performance advanced materials built from local discarded plastic, end-of-life-tires and plant matter in order to keep them out of landfills. These advanced materials can be used in nearly all applications where plastic or rubber is used. Our marketplace empowers local companies (anywhere and everywhere) to achieve zero waste to landfill and to procure upcycled materials within a circular polymer supply chain. Diverting fossil fuel based and organic materials from landfills not only enables communities to better manage their real estate for people (including green spaces), it reduces GHG at the logistics level (local solutions require less shipping), the production level and the landfill emissions level. Fewer landfills mean fewer possibilities for landfills to potentially contaminate groundwater. In addition, the datasets frakktal builds enable more efficient resource planning and production on both sides. 

Nearly 70% of the global population will live in cities by 2030, yet real estate is finite. Larger, more centralized populations affect the urban landscape in many ways including increased consumption and waste production. Landfills are a costly, imperfect Band-Aid for incomplete design for destruction programs.  In our pilot city of Houston, the most often used landfill will reach capacity within 14 years, while it takes roughly 15 years to permit and build a new landfill. 12/14 of the landfills in the Harris County area will reach capacity within 30 years. In 2019, Texans spent $110M in landfilling fees just for plastic. Landfills are imperfect by nature with issues such as leeching into groundwater. These issues are compounded by the fact that large percentages of landfills are built in lower-income neighborhoods, often with no notice to the community or remediation efforts. A resilient ecosystem is a healthy, regenerative ecosystem. Overuse of one finite resource, land, to force the degradation of other finite resources (fossil-fuel based materials) all while releasing harmful emissions is not healthy.

frakktal develops advanced materials from pervasive leftovers in order to prevent the need for new landfills and enable resilient cities. Organics, plastics and tire waste are three of the largest volume items in landfills. frakktal aims to help the largest producers of these leftover streams through manufacturing of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs). Simply, our TPEs are built from post-industrial plastic + end-of-life-tire rubber + plant polymers (processing byproducts). TPE is a ubiquitous material in our daily lives used in Automotive, Athletic Apparel, Construction and General Manufacturing applications (including 3D printing) among others. In general, TPEs have the best characteristics of plastics and rubbers, i.e., flexible, durable, chemically-resistant, reusable, etc.

We are updating wasteful, antiquated polymer processing technology into  robust mechanical processing solutions utilizing all three polymer streams. Our processes will be lead and supported by data models to build and scale new processes (driven by new inputs) and products efficiently.  

Our media will be available in a marketplace as raw material and limited issue finished goods.

Although reduction of landfill construction benefits all, our solution targets inner city residents, especially those in low and middle income designated areas where landfills (trash heaps) are more likely to appear...and remain. I have lived in a HUBZone for over 15 years, participating in both neighborhood-led and city-led efforts to prevent (illegal) dumping. In theory, developing a product with inherent value helps to keep it out of the trash. 

As of July 1, frakktal will reside at the East End Maker Hub (which is also located in a HUBZone), a makerspace for tenants specifically looking to source talent from a 3 mi. radius and employ underrepresented communities.

We aim to serve our community in two major ways: 1) creating a product of increased value through the diversion of traditionally landfilled materials (saving space, and downstream new landfill construction) and 2) engaging the community in employment and local use cases for the materials we produce (i.e., more cost effective building materials for affordable housing) 

Houston as an ecosystem (and pilot city) is representative of many communities across the globe: rapidly urbanizing and running out of human-usable spaces.  Aside from the fact that all landfills have been proven to fail, we know this (take/make/waste) system is not sustainable. frakktal's mechanical process and data modeling aim to empower both residential and commercial residents to divert waste streams from landfills, keeping leftovers in the bioeconomy loop for as long as possible. As an ecosystem, the health of the Houston's water, air and land is critical to its inhabitants well-being. Continued landfill usage and construction undermine that health.

Proof of concepts for polymers using two food byproduct streams have been achieved. A manufacturer of fiberglass containment vessels used in the Oil and Gas has agreed to partner with frakktal to divert resins and other materials, potentially saving the company >$100k yearly in landfilling fees, per site.

frakktal is innovative in three ways:

•  we use a localization model, i.e., curated solutions (including data-based design) based upon food/plant (and other byproduct) streams available in the locale in order to offset supply chain and logistics impact (i.e., not creating a product in another country and shipping it overseas) 

• we divert the “waste" created by a company (before it goes to landfill) and can also offer a media of equivalent or greater value for their use in another application on our marketplace.
  

• we are building data models to support future design for destruction. More specifically, we are building tools to predict byproduct stream volumes and to use lignocellulosic mapping  to develop more improved products.

Through these innovations, we are able to deploy frakktal solutions anywhere without the need of capital intensive or space intensive requirements such as large machinery or large, inefficient factories. 

Currently: the population of metro Houston (~7M)

One Year: the population of Houston and a beta city (perhaps Birmingham): (~10M)

Five Years: the population of Houston and three beta cities: (~20M)

We measure our progress through 6 UN SDGS:

9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

12. Responsible Consumption and Production

13. Climate Action

15. Life on Land

17. Partnerships for the Goals

Full time staff: 1

Part time staff (consultant-advisors): 2

jhana has more than 20 years in the biotech industry with a focus on
building processes and systems and matching technology with business needs. She sat on development teams for several greenfield biotechnology facility buildouts >$50MM, leading the project management, automation and quality initiatives. She is familiar with the biotech approaches to data as a source to be continuously mined and baked it into the business model. 

Dr. Panchal is deeply experienced in polymer chemistry and commercialization. 

Dr. Gair is a socially-minded mechanical engineer who has developed materials solutions for all types of communities.

The leadership team (i.e., the company) currently consists of only person, a non-binary, African-American, queer woman. 

I understand Solve to be a community of like-minded individuals and entities looking to support each other in the remediation, mitigation and potential solution of specific social concerns. I am applying because I understand that it will take a cooperative and collaborative effort to address the systems that have been built. If frakktal's solution is accepted, we look forward to that reciprocal relationship. 

Our most immediate talent needs include scientific support, such as a Research Engineer or Head Scientist. In the next two quarters, we will also require technology support for designing and building our mechanical processes and data models.

frakktal's goal is to use data to develop robust, scalable manufacturing processes that convert post industrial and post consumer polymers (synthetic and plant-based) into new advanced materials. There are a number of current MIT faculty that would be helpful to that end.

• Professor Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli - insight and guidance on computer driven design of materials (especially in an environmental construct)
• Professor Niels-Holten-Andersen - insight and guidance on polymer creation inspired by nature
• Professor Bradley Olsen - insight and guidance on block copolymers, protein-based materials, bio-inspired materials
• Professor Mary Gehring - insight and guidance on Plant Biology and Genomics

Although our solution does not specifically focus on refugee populations, refugees are typically located in the lowest income communities in a city. Our solution specifically addresses the social, environmental and economic impact of environmental injustices on those communities.

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart, sustainable polymer manufacturing technology.

Our solution specifically addresses the development of sustainable and resilient communities through social, environmental and economic impact drivers.

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart polymer manufacturing technology.

Although our solution does not specifically focus on womxn or girls, landfills affect these populations more severely. Globally, women are more often waste-pickers. Landfills are also linked to birth defects through leeching into soil and contaminated groundwater. Our solution and technology specifically addresses the social, environmental and economic impact of environmental injustices on those communities.

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart polymer manufacturing technology.

Our solution specifically addresses decarbonization in two major ways: the decreased reliance on landfills which emit greenhouse gases and the decreased reliance on (virgin) fossil-fuel based materials. A third, supplemental path is through our localization strategy. We build solutions at the community level, using community inputs in that same general community, decreasing emissions due to extensive logistics and complicated supply chains, etc. Our data driven models will also designed to predict and plan the most efficient delivery and hauling schedules.

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart polymer manufacturing technology.

Our solution includes two main data driven/AI models. One will be built to help predict product capabilities (and processes) based upon plant structures available in waste/byproducts streams. The other will be designed to predict and plan the most efficient delivery and hauling schedules to decrease associated emissions. 

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart polymer manufacturing technology.

Our solution includes three technology-powered components, consisting of mechanical technology and data driven/AI models. 

We are developing modern polymer processing technology integrated with advanced data collection and monitoring tools for continuous learning and process improvement.

One of our data models will be built to help predict product capabilities (and processes) based upon plant structures available in waste/byproducts streams. The other will be designed to predict and plan the most efficient delivery and hauling schedules to decrease associated emissions. 

The prize will enable us to achieve two strategic milestones: 1) the onboarding of a Lead Scientist and 2) the development of smart polymer manufacturing technology.