Plastic-eating bacteria shine

[lee_merrill]

Though plastic-eating bacteria have previously been discovered, with the help of artificial intelligence, a better plastic-eating bacterium has been generated:

Source: msn.com

Professor Hal Alper, of The University of Texas at Austin, said: ‘The possibilities are endless across industries to leverage this leading-edge recycling process.

‘Beyond the obvious waste management industry, this also provides corporations from every sector the opportunity to take a lead in recycling their products.

‘Through these more sustainable enzyme approaches, we can begin to envision a true circular plastics economy.’

...

The enzyme is described in Nature – the world’s most prestigious science journal.

Production is being scaled up to prepare for industrial and environmental applications.

The US team have filed a patent and are eying several different uses. Cleaning up landfills and greening high waste-producing industries are the most obvious.

But another key potential use is environmental remediation. The researchers are looking at a number of ways to clean up polluted sites.

Prof Alper said: ‘When considering environmental clean-up applications, you need an enzyme that can work in the environment at ambient temperature. This requirement is where our tech has a huge advantage in the future.’

Source

© Copyright Original Source

And from their paper in Nature:

Source: Nature

Collectively, our results demonstrate a viable route for enzymatic plastic recycling at the industrial scale.

Source

© Copyright Original Source

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

Looks like they engineered something involving mutation and scaffold combinations.