A variant of an enzyme has been created by a group of scientists and engineers from the University of Texas and was found beneficial in dissolving plastic waste at a fast rate.
This enzyme is able to dissolve plastics that naturally need centuries to degrade to do it within several hours or days.
This discovery was published in the journal Nature and it may be the key to one of the most serious problems with our environment: billions of tons of plastic garbage filling up landfills and polluting the precious land and water.
Plastic-Eating Enzyme: The Key to Plastic-Free Planet?
The new enzyme has the power to enhance recycling and give big industries a chance to lower their environmental footprint by allowing them to recover and reuse plastics at the molecular level.
According to Hal Alper, a professor at the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin, there are endless possibilities in industries to leverage this innovative process of recycling.
Alper explains that beyond the waste management industry which is evident, other corporations from various sectors can become leaders in the recycling of their products as well.
By implementing these sustainable enzyme methods, the professor notes that a circular plastics economy is being envisioned.
What Kind of Plastic-Eating Enzyme Is this?
This project focused on PET, a major polymer present in different consumer packaging, including bottles for soda drinks, containers for cookies, packaging for salads and fruits, and some textiles and fibers.
This type of plastic is 12 percent of the global garbage.
The enzyme was capable of dissolving the plastics into smaller elements and then chemically putting the elements together. In some instances, these plastics can be entirely dissolved into monomers within 24 hours.
By creating a machine learning model, the researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences produced novel mutations to an enzyme known as PETase that gives bacteria the possibility to dissolve PET plastics.
The model predicts which of the enzyme mutations can reach the goal of depolymerizing the post-consumer plastic waste at low temperatures.
The process required studying 51 different types of post-consumer containers from plastic, five polyester fibers and fabrics, and PET water bottles.
The team succeeded in proving the effectiveness of the enzyme that they call the FAST-PETase or (Functional, Active, Stable, and Tolerant PETase).
The professor in the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Andrew Ellington, explains that this work shows the power of incorporating several disciplines ranging from synthetic biology to chemical engineering to artificial intelligence.
His team led the machine learning model development.
Cutting Plastic Waste the Right Way Is Pivotal, Scientists Explain
Recycling is one of the ways to lower plastic waste; however, on a global scale, less than 10 percent of the plastics are being recycled.
Burning is another method of disposing of plastics in addition to throwing them away in landfills; however, this is pricey, intensive in terms of energy, and releases harmful gases into the air.
On the other hand, biological methods require less energy. The research on using enzymes for recycling plastics has advanced a lot in the past 15 years.
But, until now, no one was able to find out how to make enzymes that can operate at low temperatures and make them less costly and portable, and suitable for industries.
The FAST-PETase is capable of doing the process at less than 50 degrees C.
What Are the Next Steps?
The next steps of the team are to scale up the production of the enzyme and make it suitable for environmental and industrial applications. The team filed for a patent for their tech and is looking at several uses.
The most apparent ones are the cleanup of landfills and making high waste-producing industries greener.
Another, less apparent benefit, is environmental remediation. The team is focused on several ways of using the enzymes out in the fields and cleaning up polluted locations.
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