We have found three bacteria that are capable of decomposing PETs. Pseudomonas has 6.3 million base pairs which makes it one of the longest sequenced bacterium. We had difficulty finding the genetic sequences of our bacterium and enzymes.
0 Comments
During further research, we discovered a bacteria that is called Ideonella sakaiensis this bacteria dissolves plastics using different enzymes. This is good because this bacteria is easy to find, and can be reproduced quickly and easily which means that it could be a successful solution to the plastic pollution crisis. Researchers have looked into this bacteria and performed an experiment in which they put the bacteria inside of a jar with PET along with a few nutrients and after a few weeks the PET that was inside of the jar was completely gone.The bacterium uses PETase an enzyme that works with water to break down PET plastic, then uses MHETase to break down PET even more, MHETase is another enzyme that also reacts with water to break down the plastics into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol two substances that do not pose a threat to the environment. |
Authors
Rafael Faria Archives
|