New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster - The Guardian

A super-enzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before has been created by scientists and could be used for recycling within a year or two.

The super-enzyme, derived from bacteria that naturally evolved the ability to eat plastic, enables the full recycling of the bottles.

It is currently very difficult to break down plastic bottles into their chemical constituents in order to make new ones from old, meaning more new plastic is being created from oil each year.

But the super-enzyme gets to work six times faster.

The new super-enzyme works at room temperature, and McGeehan said combining different approaches could speed progress towards commercial use: “If we can make better, faster enzymes by linking them together and provide them to companies like Carbios, and work in partnership, we could start doing this within the next year or two.”.

The 2018 work had determined that the structure of one enzyme, called PETase, can attack the hard, crystalline surface of plastic bottles.

The team is now examining how the enzymes can be tweaked to make them work even faster still.