21st June 2015

3D-printed rhino horn could make poaching obsolete

A biotech startup firm has come up with an ingenious use of 3D printing that could save the rhino from extinction.

San Francisco-based Pembient reports that it has managed to synthesise fake rhino horn that is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. It even carries the same genetic fingerprint. The process involves a series of chemical reactions on synthetic keratin, which is mixed with rhino DNA to produce a dried powder used as the "ink" for the 3D printer.

The number of rhinos being killed in Africa has exploded in recent years, due to a combination of soaring demand and the industrial-scale killing methods of organised gangs. Several subspecies have already gone extinct, including the West African black rhino in 2006. The remaining five subspecies on current trends will be extinct or very near extinction as early as 2025-2030.

The illegal wildlife trade, a $20bn black market, is the fourth largest after drug, arms, and human trafficking. Pembient intends to flood China with these fake horns at well below the current market price. This same 3D printing technique could be applied to other illegal animal products like elephant ivory, tiger bones and pangolin scales.

"We can meet the demand for horns at one-eighth the black-market price. We'll make money; the poaching syndicates won't," says the co-founder and CEO of Pembient, Matthew Markus. "We can produce a rhinoceros horn product that is actually more pure than what you can get from a wild animal. There are so many contaminants, pesticides, fallout from Fukushima. Rhino horn in the lab is as pure as that of a rhino of 2,000 years ago."

A prototype is shown in the picture below. Markus will be hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on social media website Reddit, tomorrow from 1pm PT.



A prototype, 3D-printed rhino horn. Pembient will begin shipping these to Beijing later this year.

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