Technology: Plastic packaging might be biodegradable after all
While rummaging through a manure store at a Leipzig graveyard, Christian Sonnendecker and his exploration group found seven compounds they had never seen. They were chasing after proteins that would eat PET plastic — the most profoundly delivered plastic on the planet. It is ordinarily utilized for filtered water and basic foods like grapes. The researchers weren't expecting much when they took the examples back to the lab, said Sonnendecker when DW visited their Leipzig University lab. It was just the second dump they had scrounged through and they thought PET-eating proteins were intriguing. In any case, in one of the examples, they tracked down a chemical, or polyester hydrolase, called PHL7. Furthermore, it stunned them. The PHL7 compound deteriorated a whole piece of plastic in under a day. Two chemicals 'eat' plastic: PHL7 versus LCC PHL7 seems to 'eat' PET plastic times quicker than LCC, a standard chemical utilized in PET plastic-eating tests today. To gu...