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From 2012.igem.org

Plastic Terminator

"The plastics destroy us, or we destroy them"

Goal: the goal of this project is to design a polyethylene-biodegradator enzyme which is could be applicated to biodegradable and non-biodegradable polyethylene (PE).

Why is it an interesting problem?

There is no enzyme which is capable as a biological agent for degrading plastics and can work without pre-treatment.

Our design project:

During the process of degradation, PE plastic should be given a physical treatment, including UV rays and prooxidant so bacteria allows to degrade it easily. We will use landfill plastic and there is an expectation for breaking the hydrophobic bonds into hydrophilic bonds on the surface of plastic indirectly, then the PE plastic is easy to be degraded. The target is an engineered-biodegradable plastic enzymes.

Finally, We hope that it will be useful economically for landfill plastic industries, especially for some developing countries ; furthermore, it can be applied as an enzyme deployment system directly in an open junk space.