New possibility for PET plastic recycling by a tailored hydrolytic enzyme

Abstract

Plastic waste puts a huge burden on the ecosystem due to the current lack of mature recycling technology. Poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is one of the most produced plastics in the world. Enzymatic decomposition holds the promise of recovering monomers from PET plastic, and the monomers can be used to regenerate new PET products. However, there are still limitations in the activity and thermal stability of the existing PET hydrolases. The recent study by Lu et al. introduced a novel PET hydrolase via machine learning-aided engineering. The obtained PET hydrolase showed excellent activity and thermal stability in the hydrolysis of PET and is capable of directly degrading large amounts of postconsumer PET products. This approach provides an effective method for recycling PET waste and is expected to improve the current state of plastic pollution worldwide.

Keywords

• Plastic waste
• Poly(ethylene terephthalate)
• Hydrolysis
• Machine learning
• Enzymatic depolymerization
• Hydrolases