Scientist Re-engineering Plastic-Eating Enzyme Cocktail to New Revolution In Plastic Waste

Scientist Re-engineering Plastic-Eating Enzyme Cocktail to New Revolution In Plastic Waste

The scientists re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme ‘cocktail’ which can digest plastic up to six time faster. The re-engineering of the enzyme PETase have now gone a step further.

Another enzyme, found  in  the same rubbish dwelling bacterium  that lives on a diet of plastic bottles, has been combined with PETase  enzyme to speed up the breakdown of plastic.

PETase breaks down polyethylene terephthalate(PET) back into its building blocks, creating an opportunity to recycle plastic and  reduce plastic pollution.

PET it is most common used  thermoplastic to make clothing, carpets, and single use drink bottles. It takes hundreds of years for PET to disintegrates in the environment, but PETase can reduce this process to days.

New Discovery of Plastic-eating PETase first step in Plastic Recycling  Revolution,  Creating  a potential low- energy solution to tackle plastic waste.

The team of scientists have combined PETase and  second enzyme MHETase, for much bigger improvements. These mixing of PETase and MHETase double speed  of  breakdown  of  PET. Designing a connection between  the two enzyme created a super-enzyme, which increased the speed of  the acivity.

The is published in the journal Proceedings of  the National Academy of Sciences.