I-Corps: Biodegradable plastics that incorporate plastic degrading enzymes

I-Corps：含有塑料降解酶的可生物降解塑料

• 批准号: 2043075
• 负责人: Ting Xu
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2043075&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Biodegradable; plastics; incorporate; plastic

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to make environmentally friendly plastics. Compostable plastics, one of the fastest growing innovations in the space, promises to enable a circular materials economy. Unfortunately, there is currently poor access to industrial compost nationally, and building infrastructure is costly. Our technology streamlines this degradation process, requiring only water and heat, to produce small molecules than can be readily composted, or turned back into high quality plastics. The global plastic market is $234 B, and successful commercialization could positively impact environmental sustainability while meeting the needs of industry to maintain modern quality of life. The technology can potentially be used for solutions across a breadth of applications, ranging from industrial chemistry to energy generation to biotechnology.This I-Corps project supports efforts toward translation of a class of materials called random heteropolymers (RHPs). RHPs effectively stabilize enzymes in foreign environments, such as organic solvents or within plastics. Enzymes are nature’s chemists, performing chemical transformations with unparalleled efficiency and specificity within cells. However, enzymes are typically fragile and perform poorly, if at all, once removed from the cell. The proposed RHP technology enables enzymes to be covered in a nano-scale shell that shields them from the environment without harming their function. RHPs can be used to embed the enzymes that degrade plastic materials inside of the plastics. Upon triggering, the plastics biodegrade rapidly and completely, leaving behind no microplastics. The monomers can be recaptured and reused to make new plastics or disposed of as compost. The materials can also be processed using current manufacturing techniques. Altogether, this provides an opportunity to produce materials that meet the needs of industry while providing a better end of life with minimal investment in infrastructure. More broadly, RHPs offer the functionality of natural or engineered enzymes with the utility of plastics as a novel approach.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是制造环保塑料，这是该领域增长最快的创新之一，有望实现循环材料经济。不幸的是，目前工业堆肥的获取渠道并不畅通。在全国范围内，建设基础设施成本高昂。我们的技术简化了这种降解过程，只需要水和热量，即可产生易于堆肥的小分子，或转化为高质量塑料。全球塑料市场价值为 234 B，并成功商业化。可以对环境可持续性产生积极影响，同时满足工业维持现代生活质量的需求，该技术可用于从工业化学到能源生产再到生物技术等广泛应用的解决方案。该 I-Corps 项目支持为实现这一目标所做的努力。一类称为随机杂聚物 (RHP) 的材料可有效稳定外部环境中的酶，例如有机溶剂或塑料内。酶是大自然的化学家，能够以无与伦比的效率和特异性进行化学转化。然而，酶通常很脆弱，一旦从细胞中去除，其性能就会很差，所提出的 RHP 技术使酶能够被纳米级的外壳覆盖，从而保护它们免受环境影响，而不会损害它们的功能。用于将降解塑料材料的酶嵌入塑料内部，一旦触发，塑料就会快速完全地生物降解，不会留下任何微塑料，可以重新捕获并重新使用以制造新塑料或进行处理。总而言之，这些材料还可以使用当前的制造技术进行加工，同时以最少的基础设施投资提供更好的使用寿命。天然或工程酶与塑料的实用性作为一种新颖的方法。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。