Recycling Plastic with Enzymes

 


PET is the most common plastic, it’s in bottles, fibers and many other products. It’s full name is Polyethylene terephthalate. It’s a unique section of the plastic family, as it can be broken down into monomers. This breakdown is caused by PETases,  enzymes that degrade PET. 

Scientists in the past have  discovered PETases in nature, these include bacteria, ideonella sakaiensis, and even leaf compost cutinase. These biocatalysts are currently being used in industrial practices. 

Recycling technology has focused on decomposing contaminated PET under mild conditions. They are hoping for high purity monomer. There is, however a need for a much more efficient biocatalysts. 

A team from Kyungpook National University (KNU) is studying a new biocatalyst. They are being led by Kyung-Jin Kim. He is a professor of life science and biotech technology and head of KNU Institute for microorganisms. They have created a novel methodology for the discovery of naturally occurring microbial enzymes. It’s expected that this research will have a big impact on the recycling industry. The findings are published in science on January 3, 2025.

The study looks at the different aspects of this field. Landscaping of genetic sequences, screening for high fitness enzymes, creating them and evaluating their performance were all studied. The team also worked on a new clustering approach. They screened about 2000 candidate enzymes, across many families. This created a landscape view of proficiency and stability.

Because of this view, scientists could identify highly efficient enzymes for future testing. They created two enzymes, Mipa-P and Kubu-P using sequential mutagenesis. Professor Kim states, “we were particularly excited to observe that Kubu-P (M12) thrives under industrial conditions. Its ability to handle high PET loads and withstand elevated temperatures coupled with its impressive activity at lower temperatures is highly advantageous. This makes it a promising candidate for real world applications.” 

Professor Kim summarizes about the bright future of PET recycling, “ The novel enzymes discovered through this method will enable the continuous recycling process of PET at lower temperatures and higher productivity. Furthermore, this landscaping method of protein sequences proposed in this study, may allow for the classification categories of the chaotic enzyme family to be established in detail, which will allow scientists to move easily to predict and understand enzyme function. As biocatalytic recycling becomes industrially viable, it will be possible to offset the growing demand of virgin PET from crude oil through fully closed PET recycling.”

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