MIT moves closer to creating biodegradable plastics

MIT has described the development as a breakthrough that could help chemical engineers tweak the enzyme to make it even more industrially useful.

“Learning more about the enzyme’s structure could help engineers control the polymers’ composition and size, a possible step toward commercial production of these plastics, which, unlike conventional plastic formed from petroleum products, should be biodegradable,” the institute added.

Catherine Drennan, an MIT professor of chemistry and biology, said: “I’m hoping that this structure will help people in thinking about a way that we can use this knowledge from nature to do something better for our planet.”

According to the researchers, the enzyme – polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase – generates long polymer chains that can form either hard or soft plastics, depending on the starting materials that go into them.

A full account of the research has been published in Biological Chemistry. The paper’s lead author is graduate student Elizabeth Wittenborn.