The
end-of-life plastic crisis is very prominent in the research
area and even in the public realm. Especially, for plastic polymers
that are difficult to recycle via traditional routes such as the polyurethanes
(PUs), novel routes should be investigated. In 2015, PU contributed
about 16 million metric tons of global plastic waste. While polymer
degradation via chemical routes such as solvolysis and pyrolysis are
feasible, the challenge of PU chemical recycling is in the varying
mixture and composition of its monomers. Here, we propose a biotechnological
route to utilize PU hydrolysate as a carbon source for a defined microbial
mixed culture. The mixed culture consists of dedicated microbes, each
trained to utilize a single PU monomer and further engineered to produce
valuable products. While three Pseudomonas putida KT2440 derivatives utilized adipic acid, 1,4-butanediol, and ethylene
glycol, respectively, a recently described Pseudomonas sp. TDA1 used 2,4-toluenediamine (TDA) as a sole carbon source.
However, TDA clearly inhibited mixed substrate utilization by the
mixed culture, and it also has a high intrinsic value. Therefore,
TDA reactive extraction before PU monomer utilization was established,
allowing full utilization of the remaining PU monomers as carbon sources
for rhamnolipid production. The results highlight the potential of
(bio)technological plastic upcycling.
Vicinal amino alcohols such as metaraminol find direct application in pharmaceuticals and serve as building blocks for fine chemicals. The amine transaminase enzyme can facilitate the stereoselective production of such...
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