Could this new discovery help solve our global plastic problem?
Scientists from the University of Portsmouth, UK, and the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have engineered an enzyme that can digest some of the most common and polluting plastics.
Since its rise in popularity in the 1950s, we have produced about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. Polyethene terephthalate (PET) is just one of many plastics and takes hundreds of years to degrade, meaning this enzyme could be the answer to a major environmental problem. The enzyme, known as PETase, was recently discovered to naturally digest PET. While testing and 3D modelling the enzyme, the team unintentionally engineered the PETase to break down the plastic at a much faster rate than it would naturally.
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この記事は How It Works の Issue 112 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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