Back in 2018, scientists in Japan made the key discovery of a bacterium with a natural appetite for PET plastics. This raised the prospect of a low-cost solution to some of the most common forms of ...

The crystal structure of PET46 resembles the crystal structure of the IsPETase and LCC - with unique features. Credit: Communications Chemistry (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42004-023-00998-z Plastic ...

Over the past five years or so we've seen some important breakthroughs demonstrating how enzymes can be used to break down common plastics, such as the PET used for everything from drink bottles to ...

More than 60 million metric tons of PET are produced each year, much of which is not recycled. The most common recycling technique, a thermomechanical process, produces material with mechanical ...

A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom looking into a natural enzyme that could break down PET says it has uncovered ways to generate even bigger improvements. By combining two ...

The rigidity, transparency and hardness of PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) make it one of the most valuable plastics for the manufacture of plastic bottles, packaging and other single-use products.

Plastics have a lot of properties that have made them fixtures of modern societies. They can be molded into any shape we’d like, they’re tough yet flexible, and they come in enough variations that we ...

Scientists who helped to pioneer the use of enzymes to eat plastic have taken an important next step in developing nature-based solutions to the global plastics crisis. They have characterized an ...

Plastic waste is a big problem in the environment. About 300 million tons is produced every year, according to the United Nations. Much of that is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used to make single ...

One way in which enzymes are used in nature is by bacteria to decompose plant parts. It has been known for some time that some enzymes, so-called polyester-cleaving hydrolases, can also degrade PET.

Why bury plastic in a landfill and wait years for it to degrade when it can break down in days — or even hours? That’s what researchers at the University of Texas at Austin propose in their study of a ...