A storage of bacterium
Pseudomonas
It has been engineered and “trained” to demolish the most unrecognizable components of the nylon of dresses and fishing networks.
A genetically modified bacterium is able to demolish nylon chemical compounds to obtain useful and non -polluting materials. Although technology will still take time to be perfected, in 10-30 years we could find ourselves with a valid, invisible ally in the recycling of a material that is difficult to reuse today.
From fossil fuels. The term nylon indicates a family of Polymid (a class of macromolecole) syntheticin particular the Poliammidi alifaticaobtained from the reaction of an acid on a chemical product derived from oil. The nylon is therefore a plastic to weara synthetic fiber which, together with the polyester, is employed in 60% of the clothes and in 70% of the home textiles in Europe. For their durability and resistance to traction, these materials are used to create intimate and sporting clothing, tights, networks and fishing lines, umbrellas, parachutes, components of the automotive industry.
The problems in recycling. Due to the highly production, the products made with these fibers end up accumulating in the environment and in landfills. The incineration process is critical because Release poisonous compoundsand the correct recycling currently concerns less than 5% of the polyamides produced.
Traditional mechanical recycling, which provides that fibers or plastic products are back from the merger of the nylon, it is possible only on “pure” nylon waste, a small minority; while the chemical recycling of nylon in a highly acidic solution is possible, but it causes the formation of low molecular weight compounds (oligomeri) difficult to work and not useful from a commercial point of view.
A bacterium with superpowers. And it is precisely this last problem that the research, published in the scientific journal Nature microbiologytried to face. A team from the Jülich Research Center, a German research institution specialized among other things in the fields of energy and bioeconomics, has changed an harmless strain of the soil of the soil of the species Pseudomonas putidacalled KT2440, giving him genes that made him capable of digest and break down various chemical compounds produced by the dissolution of the nylon.
Only the best. The bacterium has already shown itself to be able to break down other materials deriving from oil as well as to clean up the spills of crude oil at sea, but the team wanted to take one step more By cultivating in the laboratory various subsequent generations of the microorganismso as to get used to it always better to manage the nylon by -products. At the end of the evolution process, the bacteria obtained were able to use the compounds derived from the nylon To create poloydroxybutirratoa biodegradable plastic not harmful to living tissues.
Food for bacteria. According to the researchers, it Pseudomonas modified consume almost all of the dissolved plastic mixand even if it will be necessary to improve some phases of the process before its use on a large scale, the study could prepare a future in which we will pretend to be the textile fibers of dresses and fishing networks so that, at the end of life, they can be digestible from created bacteria on purpose with this purpose.
