Plastics have become one of the most important materials that affect human’s daily life in the past century. Among all plastics, PET is the most abundant polyester manufactured in the world and has been widely used for beverage bottles, packaging, clothing, and carpeting. At the same time, large quantities of PET have also been released to the environment during the process of its production, application, and disposal. It is estimated that it takes up to 500 years to completely degrade PET plastics by microorganisms in the environment. Now the accumulation of PET wastes is continuously increasing and starts to threaten the ecosystem across the globe. Mechanical recycling of PET into new packaging and clothing fibers is a low-cost and well-established approach, but downgrading of the material properties often results. Bioconversion of PET wastes into value-added chemical products may provide great benefits for both plastic pollution control and creating new biomanufacturing resources.
We aim to use advanced biotechnology to produce high levels of enzymes in engineered bacteria that can convert PET waste into its monomers, terephthalate (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG), followed by converting TPA into value-added chemicals such as protocatechuic acid (PCA), catechnol, and other important building-block chemicals.
