The pursuit of plastic degradation by biological means, or biodegradation, previously focused mainly on microorganisms.

Bertocchini is one of two leaders of a Madrid-based company called Plasticentropy that is working to commercialize the use of the enzymes to break down plastic waste. This suggests alternative scenarios to deal with plastic waste in which plastics can be degraded in controlled conditions, limiting or eventually eliminating altogether the release of microplastics,” said study co-author Clemente Fernandez Arias, an ecologist and mathematician at CSIC.Ī foundation related to German plastics engineering company Röchling helped fund the research. “In our case, the enzymes oxidize plastics, breaking it into small molecules. Bertocchini said the use of billions of wax worms to do the job has drawbacks including generating carbon dioxide as they metabolize the polyethylene. The idea would be to produce the worms’ saliva enzymes synthetically, which the researchers succeeded in doing, to break down plastic waste. Plastic is made of polymers designed to be hard to break down and contains additives that increase durability, meaning it can remain intact for years, decades or centuries. This is “changing the paradigm of plastic biodegradation,” said molecular biologist Federica Bertocchini of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications. The wax worm saliva contains enzymes that set off polyethylene degradation. The researchers found that the enzymes performed this step within hours without the need for pre-treatment such as applying heat or radiation. The answer was enzymes - substances produced by living organisms that trigger biochemical reactions.įor plastic to degrade, oxygen must penetrate the polymer - or plastic molecule - in an important initial step called oxidation. The study builds on the researchers’ 2017 findings that wax worms were capable of degrading polyethylene, though at that time it was unclear how these small insects did it.

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