Researchers engineer plastic-eating enzyme

The enzyme is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate or PET, used in millions of tonnes of plastic bottles

Image for representational purposes only | File

Scientists in Britain and the United States say they have engineered a plastic-eating enzyme that could in future help in the fight against pollution.

The enzyme, which is biodegradable, is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate, or PET — a form of plastic patented in the 1940s and now used in millions of tonnes of plastic bottles. PET plastics can persist for hundreds of years in the environment and currently pollute large areas of land and sea worldwide.

Accidental find

Researchers from Britain’s University of Portsmouth and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory made the discovery while examining the structure of a natural enzyme thought to have evolved in a waste recycling centre in Japan.

Finding that this enzyme was helping a bacteria to break down, or digest, PET plastic, the researchers decided to “tweak” its structure by adding some amino acids, said John McGeehan, a professor at Portsmouth who co-led the work.

This led to a serendipitous change in the enzyme’s actions, allowing its plastic-eating abilities to work faster.

The team, whose finding was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, is now working on improving the enzyme further to see if they can make it capable of breaking down PET plastics on an industrial scale.

“It’s well within the possibility that in the coming years we will see an industrially viable process to turn PET, and potentially other (plastics), back into their original building blocks so that they can be sustainably recycled,” Mr. McGeehan said.

Independent scientists not directly involved with the research said it was exciting, but they cautioned that the enzyme’s development as a potential solution for pollution was still at an early stage.