| Popis: |
Packaging accounts for more than 40% of all plastics produced every year and plastic accumulation in the environment has become a serious problem, thus the improvement of its circularity from origin to subsequent life cycles is now a priority. An effective and eco-friendly approach to solve such problem is the use of biodegradable materials, whose global production capacities are set to increase from around 1.1 million tonnes in 2022 to approximately 3.5 million tonnes in 2027. In particular, a new strategy for the management of plastics is based on the design of polymers that contain degrading enzymes in their formulation: the enzymes should be activated only at the end-of-life of the material. However, the harsh conditions used in most industrial plastic processes cause denaturation and loss of activity of enzymes, thus efficient protection strategies are necessary. In this way, thermally protected enzymes could be embedded in plastic formulation, obtaining novel “degradable on-demand” materials. In the present study, cutinase from Humicola Insolens, selected as a highly degrading polyester hydrolytic enzyme, is immobilized in Mg/Al layered double hydroxide structures. The immobilization efficiency results high and the enzyme thermal stability strongly improves after immobilization, since its half-life at 90°C increases by 6 times. |
