Biological Upcycling of Plastics Waste

Plastic wastes accumulate in the environment, impacting wildlife and human health and representing a significant pool of inexpensive waste carbon that could form feedstock for the sustainable production of commodity chemicals, monomers, and specialty chemicals. Current mechanical recycling technolog...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of chemical and biomolecular engineering 2024-07, Vol.15 (1), p.315-342
Main Authors: Klauer, Ross R, Hansen, D. Alex, Wu, Derek, Monteiro, Lummy Maria Oliveira, Solomon, Kevin V, Blenner, Mark A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacteria - enzymology
Bacteria - metabolism
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Bioaccumulation
Biodegradation, Environmental
biological plastic deconstruction
biological plastic upcycling
enzyme discovery
Humans
INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Metabolic pathways
Microorganisms
Plastic debris
Plastics
Plastics - chemistry
Plastics - metabolism
plastics bioeconomy
Polyethylene terephthalate
Recycling
Sustainable production
Waste management
Waste Products - analysis
Waste streams
Wildlife
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Summary:Plastic wastes accumulate in the environment, impacting wildlife and human health and representing a significant pool of inexpensive waste carbon that could form feedstock for the sustainable production of commodity chemicals, monomers, and specialty chemicals. Current mechanical recycling technologies are not economically attractive due to the lower-quality plastics that are produced in each iteration. Thus, the development of a plastics economy requires a solution that can deconstruct plastics and generate value from the deconstruction products. Biological systems can provide such value by allowing for the processing of mixed plastics waste streams via enzymatic specificity and using engineered metabolic pathways to produce upcycling targets. We focus on the use of biological systems for waste plastics deconstruction and upcycling. We highlight documented and predicted mechanisms through which plastics are biologically deconstructed and assimilated and provide examples of upcycled products from biological systems. Additionally, we detail current challenges in the field, including the discovery and development of microorganisms and enzymes for deconstructing non–polyethylene terephthalate plastics, the selection of appropriate target molecules to incentivize development of a plastic bioeconomy, and the selection of microbial chassis for the valorization of deconstruction products.
ISSN:1947-5438
1947-5446
1947-5446
DOI:10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-100522-115850