Mutant enzyme could vastly improve recycling of plastic bottles
‘A huge step forward’ for PET recycling:
They isolated a mutant enzyme that’s 10,000 times more efficient at PET bond breaking than the native LLC. It also works without breaking down at 72°C, close to the temperature at which PET becomes molten. In a small reactor designed to test the enzyme, the team found that it could break down 90% of 200 grams of PET in 10 hours. The researchers then used the terephthalate and ethylene glycol building blocks generated by the enzyme to generate new PET and produce plastic bottles that were just as strong as those made from conventional plastics, they report today in Nature.
(via Boing Boing)(tags: pet plastic recycling enzymes via:boingboing)