Using enzymes and reaction engineering to modify PET depolymerization
Polymers are of central importance for a wide spectrum of applications that range from industrial to municipal and eventually consumer products, e.g. food packaging for end users and domestic furniture. This leads to significant plastic waste streams and one of the main contributors is polyethylene terepthalate (PET) due to its wide applicability, especially in the consumer market.
Thus, recycling strategies, incl. catalytic approaches, are highly investigated to facilitate the re-synthesis of PET without any significant loss in product property and in particular for closing carbon cycles. While a full hydrolysis of PET to terephthalic acid (TA) and ethylene glycol (EG) is typically discussed, a partial hydrolysis to mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (MHET) and bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) offers more economical direct synthesis routes to the desired polymer. The research groups of Prof. Jan von Langermann and Prof. Christof Hamel, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg together with Prof. Uwe Bornscheuer and Dr. Ren Wei, Universität Greifswald, are investigating the option to specifically alter the product profile during enzymatic PET depolymerization by controlling selectivity via choice of enzymes and process control parameters, respectively.
#enzyme #biocatalysis #polymer #plastics #depolymerization #reactionengineering #greenchemistry #selectivity #processcontrol
Read more in our paper: https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cssc.202401759
