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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Nature-Inspired Strategies for Sustainable Degradation of Synthetic Plastics
ClearMicrobial plastic degradation: enzymes, pathways, challenges, and perspectives.
This review synthesizes current knowledge on microbial plastic degradation, covering the enzymes and metabolic pathways involved in breaking down major synthetic polymers, the challenges limiting efficient biodegradation, and perspectives for engineering improved microbial solutions to plastic waste.
Enzymes to make plastics disappear
This review article discusses the problem of plastic waste accumulating in the environment, including the formation of microplastics, and explores the potential of engineered enzymes to break down synthetic polymers as a biological solution to plastic pollution.
Role of Novel Biological Agents in Plastic Degradation and Mitigation Approach towards Bioplastics
This review examines the role of novel biological agents — including bacteria, fungi, and engineered microorganisms — in degrading synthetic plastics and proposes bioplastics as a mitigation strategy to reduce persistent polymer accumulation in the environment. The authors outline the enzymatic mechanisms involved in breaking down major plastic types and discuss the potential of combining biological degradation with bioplastic adoption.
Biological Degradation of Plastics and Microplastics: A Recent Perspective on Associated Mechanisms and Influencing Factors
This review looks at how bacteria and their enzymes can break down different types of plastics and microplastics through biological processes. Understanding these natural degradation pathways is important because they could be harnessed to reduce the amount of persistent microplastic pollution that accumulates in the environment and eventually enters the human food chain.
Discovery of Plastics-degrading Enzymes
This review examines the discovery and characterization of plastic-degrading enzymes, exploring microbial strategies for breaking down synthetic polymers that persist in the environment for up to 1,000 years. The paper discusses enzyme mechanisms, substrate specificity, and the potential of biological degradation to address the global plastic waste crisis driven by poor recycling practices.
Recent advances and challenges in sustainable management of plastic waste using biodegradation approach
This review provides a comprehensive overview of plastic biodegradation as a sustainable strategy for managing plastic waste accumulation. Researchers surveyed recent breakthroughs in identifying microorganisms and enzymes capable of breaking down various plastic polymers under relatively mild conditions. The study highlights that while biodegradation shows promise as an eco-friendly alternative to conventional waste management, significant challenges remain in scaling these approaches for practical application.
Microbial biodegradation of plastics: Challenges, opportunities, and a critical perspective
Researchers reviewed microbial biodegradation of synthetic plastics, summarizing the bacterial and fungal species, enzymes, and biochemical pathways capable of breaking down common polymers and arguing that combining microbial approaches with physicochemical methods offers the most promising eco-friendly route to plastic waste remediation.
Biodegradation of Microplastic: A Sustainable Approach
This review examines biological approaches to microplastic degradation, covering microorganisms and enzymes capable of breaking down common plastic polymers such as PET and polyethylene. Biodegradation could offer a sustainable path to reducing microplastic accumulation in soil, water, and marine environments.
Management of Environmental Plastic Pollution: a Comparison of Existing Strategies and Emerging Solutions from Nature
Researchers reviewed the full landscape of plastic waste management strategies — from production controls and recycling to biological degradation — finding that while traditional approaches have had mixed results, newly discovered plastic-eating microbes and enzymes offer a promising complementary path to reducing the global plastic burden.
Harnessing Microorganisms for Microplastic Degradation: A Sustainable Approach to Mitigating Environmental Pollution
This review surveys microorganisms—bacteria, fungi, and other taxa—capable of degrading microplastics, examining the enzymes, metabolic pathways, and environmental conditions involved, and assessing the practical potential of harnessing these organisms for bioremediation of plastic pollution.
Microbial Degradation and Valorization of Plastic Wastes
This review covers recent advances in microbial and enzymatic degradation of synthetic plastic wastes, summarizing the microorganisms and enzymes capable of attacking different polymer types and assessing the prospects for biological plastic waste treatment at scale.
Microbial Biodegradation of Plastics and Microplastics: Enzymatic Mechanisms, Biotechnological Applications, and Ecotoxicological Perspectives
This review examined the enzymatic mechanisms by which microorganisms degrade plastics and microplastics, covering biotechnological applications and ecotoxicological perspectives. Researchers found that certain bacterial and fungal enzymes can break down persistent plastic polymers, positioning microbial biodegradation as a promising sustainable remediation approach, though scalability and environmental deployment remain challenges.
Recent Advancements and Mechanism of Plastics Biodegradation Promoted by Bacteria: A Key for Sustainable Remediation for Plastic Wastes
This review highlights recent discoveries of microbial enzymes capable of degrading various plastics, discussing bacterial biodegradation mechanisms as a sustainable remediation strategy for addressing accumulating plastic waste in landfills and water bodies.
Genetic Enhancement of Plastic Degrading Bacteria: The Way to a Sustainable and Healthy Environment
Researchers review how genetic engineering of plastic-degrading bacteria could accelerate the biological breakdown of plastic waste, highlighting promising enzymes and metabolic pathways. Engineering microbes with enhanced plastic-digesting capabilities could become an important tool for reducing the global accumulation of microplastics in the environment.
Microbial and Enzymatic Degradation of Synthetic Plastics
This review examines microorganisms and enzymes that show promise for breaking down common synthetic plastics like polyethylene, PET, and polystyrene. While natural biodegradation of these materials is extremely slow, researchers have identified certain bacteria, fungi, and enzymes that can accelerate the process, pointing toward potential biological solutions for plastic pollution.
Natural Solutions To Battle Microplastics
This report reviews biological and nature-based approaches to fighting microplastic pollution, highlighting organisms and enzymes that can break down or capture plastic particles as potential tools for environmental cleanup.
A minireview on the bioremediative potential of microbial enzymes as solution to emerging microplastic pollution
This mini review explores the potential of microbial enzymes as a sustainable solution for degrading microplastics, discussing recent advances in identifying plastic-degrading enzymes and the challenges remaining for practical bioremediation applications.
Microbes mediated plastic degradation: A sustainable approach for environmental sustainability
This review examines microbially mediated plastic degradation as a sustainable environmental cleanup strategy, surveying bacterial and fungal species capable of breaking down common polymers and discussing enzymatic pathways and factors limiting practical biodegradation rates.
A Review of Cross-Disciplinary Approaches for the Identification of Novel Industrially Relevant Plastic-Degrading Enzymes
This review surveys cross-disciplinary research identifying microbial enzymes capable of degrading synthetic plastics, highlighting promising candidates from bacteria and fungi that could be engineered for industrial-scale plastic biodegradation.
A concept for the biotechnological minimizing of emerging plastics, micro- and nano-plastics pollutants from the environment: A review.
This review examined biotechnological strategies for remediating plastics, micro-, and nano-plastics from the environment, cataloguing microbial and enzymatic degradation approaches, discussing their mechanistic basis, and proposing an integrated biotechnology framework for minimizing plastic pollution across terrestrial and aquatic systems.
Enzyme‐Catalyzed Biodegradation of Micro‐ and Nanoplastics
This chapter examines enzyme-catalyzed biodegradation of micro- and nanoplastics, detailing the mechanisms by which various enzymes break down synthetic polymers and comparing the advantages of enzymatic approaches over conventional plastic disposal methods.
Recent trends in microbial and enzymatic plastic degradation: a solution for plastic pollution predicaments
This review covers recent advances in using microorganisms and their enzymes to break down plastics including polyethylene, PVC, polystyrene, and PET, with techniques like protein engineering being used to boost enzyme efficiency. Microbial degradation offers a sustainable approach to reducing the persistent plastic pollution that generates the microplastics found throughout the environment and human body.
Why have we not yet solved the challenge of plastic degradation by biological means?
This review explores why biological plastic degradation remains unsolved despite decades of research, examining the limitations of microbial and enzymatic approaches and arguing that complementary strategies combining multiple methods will be needed.
Microbial engineering strategies for synthetic microplastics clean up: A review on recent approaches
This review examined microbial engineering strategies for breaking down synthetic microplastics, covering PETase and MHETase enzyme engineering, immobilization approaches, and the major challenges that remain before biological plastic cleanup can be deployed at scale.