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Towards carbon neutrality: Sustainable recycling and upcycling strategies and mechanisms for polyethylene terephthalate via biotic/abiotic pathways
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This review maps both biological and chemical pathways for recycling and upcycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET), cataloging over 25 value-added products that can be derived from PET waste—including adipic acid, vanillin, and glycolic acid—and outlining how combining microbial depolymerization with advanced catalysis could support a lower-carbon circular economy.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), one of the most ubiquitous engineering plastics, presents both environmental challenges and opportunities for carbon neutrality and a circular economy. This review comprehensively addressed the latest developments in biotic and abiotic approaches for PET recycling/upcycling. Biotically, microbial depolymerization of PET, along with the biosynthesis of reclaimed monomers [terephthalic acid (TPA), ethylene glycol (EG)] to value-added products, presents an alternative for managing PET waste and enables CO2 reduction. Abiotically, thermal treatments (i.e., hydrolysis, glycolysis, methanolysis, etc.) and photo/electrocatalysis, enabled by catalysis advances, can depolymerize or convert PET/PET monomers in a more flexible, simple, fast, and controllable manner. Tandem abiotic/biotic catalysis offers great potential for PET upcycling to generate commodity chemicals and alternative materials, ideally at lower energy inputs, greenhouse gas emissions, and costs, compared to virgin polymer fabrication. Remarkably, over 25 types of upgraded PET products (e.g., adipic acid, muconic acid, catechol, vanillin, and glycolic acid, etc.) have been identified, underscoring the potential of PET upcycling in diverse applications. Efforts can be made to develop chemo-catalytic depolymerization of PET, improve microbial depolymerization of PET (e.g., hydrolysis efficiency, enzymatic activity, thermal and pH level stability, etc.), as well as identify new microorganisms or hydrolases capable of degrading PET through computational and machine learning algorithms. Consequently, this review provides a roadmap for advancing PET recycling and upcycling technologies, which hold the potential to shape the future of PET waste management and contribute to the preservation of our ecosystems.
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Researchers reviewed metabolic and enzymatic engineering strategies for breaking down PET plastic waste, highlighting advances in engineered PETase enzymes and microbial pathways that could enable cost-effective biological recycling of the roughly 29 million metric tons of PET produced annually.
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This review surveys emerging chemical recycling and upcycling technologies for waste polyesters, particularly PET, covering thermal, photocatalytic, electrocatalytic, and biocatalytic depolymerization methods that convert plastic waste back into valuable monomers and chemicals to support a circular carbon economy.
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Researchers developed a cocktail of thermophilic enzymes capable of efficiently breaking down PET plastic at elevated temperatures, outperforming single-enzyme approaches. The process not only degrades PET but enables upcycling of the resulting monomers into higher-value products, closing the loop on plastic waste. This thermophilic approach offers practical advantages for industrial-scale enzymatic plastic recycling.
Chemical Recycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate: A Review
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This review surveys advances in chemical recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET)—including glycolysis, hydrolysis, enzymatic depolymerization, and tandem catalysis—as strategies to recover monomers and close the plastic carbon loop. Since PET is a major source of microplastic pollution through bottle and textile degradation, effective chemical recycling pathways are critical for reducing its long-term environmental persistence.
Recent Advances in the Chemobiological Upcycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) into Value-Added Chemicals
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This review covers recent advances in biological and chemical upcycling of PET plastic waste into value-added chemicals, examining degradation pathways including pyrolysis, gasification, and enzymatic depolymerization that break PET into monomers for use as bioconversion substrates.
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