SIU Carbondale Turns Plastic Waste Into 3D-Printed Space Food

Researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have developed a process that turns plastic bottles and agricultural waste into edible food, with the final product extruded through a 3D printer into protein-rich cookies. The team presented the work at the American Chemical Society Fall 2026 meeting in Chicago, funded through NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge.

From Waste to µBites

The process starts with polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic used in water and soda bottles, and agricultural waste such as corn stalks and leaves. That material goes through oxidative hydrothermal dissolution, a technique from SIU geology professor Ken Anderson that uses water and oxygen at high temperature and pressure to break the waste into pieces small enough for microbes to process.

Associate Professor Lahiru Jayakody and graduate student Sandhya Jayasekara then programmed yeasts, including baker's yeast, to convert those pieces into proteins, fats, vitamins, and flavoring compounds. The mixture is combined with fiber, starch, and sweetener, then pushed through a 3D printer to form cookies shaped like the Greek letter mu with a ring around it. The team calls them µBites.

"We were trying to develop technologies for plastic upcycling to make more valuable products. We thought, why not focus on making food? Because plastic is carbon and food is carbon," said Jayakody.

Why This Matters for Space Missions

Long-duration missions to Mars or a permanent lunar base cannot rely on resupply from Earth. Current space food is pre-packaged and shelf-stable, but that model breaks down on multi-year trips. The µBites approach flips the problem: instead of carrying all the food, astronauts grow it locally from waste streams using engineered microbes, then shape it with a 3D printer.

The team has not yet eaten the cookies, pending institutional approval for human taste testing, though early aroma assessments were reportedly positive. Jayasekara has also built yeast strains that produce vanilla flavoring from plant biomass and beta-carotene from PET-derived ethylene glycol, pushing the product closer to something people would actually want to eat.

The Bigger Picture

Jayakody points to food security pressures that extend well beyond space. Global food demand is expected to rise 35 to 56 percent by 2050, and around 30 percent of the world population could face hunger risks. He sees microbes as a central part of the answer. µBites could eventually reach consumers on Earth for use in submarines, disaster zones, or other resource-constrained settings, with the longer-term goal of producing the starch, fiber, and sweetener components microbially as well.