能源、气候与材料2020nature.com编辑精选
一种工程化 PET 解聚酶用于分解和回收塑料瓶
An engineered PET depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles
专业 · 约 80 分钟读完前置知识：酶学基础、蛋白质工程、PET 高分子化学
导读
这篇论文通过蛋白质工程改造 PET 解聚酶，使其在较高温度下仍保持活性，从而更有效地把废弃 PET 瓶解聚为单体；随后再将单体重新聚合成符合工业强度、延展性和色泽标准的水瓶，展示了实验室规模上的闭环回收可行性。
HN 关注点：把基础酶学推进到可验证的工业回收闭环，讨论焦点包括酶的热稳定性突破、与原生 PET 的成本竞争，以及酶在实际环境中是否安全。
后来怎么样
该工作成为酶法 PET 回收的里程碑：其热稳定 LCC 变体被后续大量 PETase 工程研究用作基准，并推动 Carbios 等公司将酶解聚推向中试和示范生产；但大规模商业化仍受成本与收集体系制约。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：支持 1 补充 2 亲历 1
支持赞扬作者不仅发表酶学结果，还做出符合标准的水瓶，证明实验室规模工业可行性；但成本仍难与原生 PET 竞争。
这项研究令人兴奋的是，作者明显超出了科学论文（即便是 Nature 论文）的常规标准。他们通过将废弃 PET 解聚、再重新聚合成符合工业强度/延展性和色泽标准的有用水瓶，证明了所提出酶法工艺的工业可行性。我在微生物学领域工作，看到把基础生物化学与实际工业实施（实验室规模）联系起来的研究，真的很 impressive。他们工艺中有部分需要改进（且油价必须上涨），才能与直接用原生 PET 原料制造相比具有成本竞争力，但这是一个很强的基础。它比大多数“研究人员发现某种酶将革新 Y 产业”要接近实现得多。
wdwvt1查看英文原文
The exciting thing about this research is that the authors substantially exceeded the normal bar for publishing a scientific article (even one in Nature). They demonstrated industrial feasibility of their proposed enzymatic process by depolymerizing waste PET then repolymerizing it into a useful item (water bottle) that met industry standards for strength/ductility and coloration. I work in microbiology, and seeing research that connects basic biochemistry to actual industrial implementation (at the lab scale) is really impressive. There are pieces of their process that would need to be refined (and the cost of oil would have to rise) for this to be cost competitive with just manufacturing from virgin PET units, but it's a strong foundation. It's much closer to realization than most "researchers discover enzyme that does X and will revolutionize industry Y".
补充提醒酶在实际环境条件下效率低，90%/10h应是在最适受控条件下，不必担心酶会到处降解PET；重组菌逃逸且被自然选择保留的可能性也很低。
我现在也访问不到文章，但想提醒那些“这种酶会把我们所有东西吃掉！”的评论者：一般来说，大多数酶在环境条件下并不能很有效地工作。摘要没有详细说明他们如何达到“10小时90%”指标，但我猜测这是在精确控制的溶液中、在最适温度下、使用尚未开始变性的新鲜酶完成的。你不可能把它喷到某人房子的塑料外墙板上，然后看着它萎缩消失（即使房屋外墙是 PET，而不是我记得的乙烯基之类）。我想我不能排除某种表达该酶的重组细菌逃出实验室，导致 PET 物品长期放在外面后发霉或长出包浆。但那需要这种酶对细菌有足够好处，以至于自然选择不会倾向于丢掉该基因。
maxander查看英文原文
I don't have access to the article right now either, but I would like to note to the "this enzyme is going to eat all our stuff!" commenters that, in general, most enzymes don't work very effectively in ambient conditions. The abstract doesn't go into detail into how they acheived the "90% in 10h" metric, but I would assume this was in a precisely controlled solution, incubated at an optimal temperature, with fresh enzyme that hadn't had a chance to start denaturing. You aren't going to be able to spray this on the plastic siding of someone's house and watch it wither away (even if home siding was PET and not, IIRC, vinyl or something.) I guess I can't rule out at that some recombinant bacterium expressing this enzyme might escape the lab and start causing PET objects to get moldy or develop a patina if left out too long [0]. But that would require that this enzyme somehow benefits the bacterium enough that natural selection wouldn't favor dropping the gene for it. [0] Hrm, there's a thought - what if your refrigerator needed to be refrigerated?
亲历亲历补充：社区级分散回收可将废塑料制成3D打印耗材，但需掺混原生塑料，适用于性能要求不高的场景。
有意思，我一直在帮忙处理塑料问题：购买碎塑料废料，把它变成 3D 打印机耗材。需要与原生塑料混合（30-70 或 40-60）。项目详情：https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922 社区可以自己搭建机器，用废塑料制造耗材，这对于不涉及生命安全的 3D 打印来说足够好。
econcon查看英文原文
It's interesting, I've been helping plastic situation by buying shredded plastic scrap and turning it into filament for 3d printers, you need to mix it with virgin plastic (30-70 or 40-60) Here's the project details: https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922 Communities can setup their own machines and create filament from scrap plastic, this is good enough for 3d printing where your life doesn't depend on it.
补充强调论文核心突破是提高酶的热稳定性，使其在底物玻璃化转变温度以上仍有活性，而非盲目随机突变。
令人兴奋的是，酶的热稳定性确实有真正进展。这正是文章的重点：工程化一种在底物玻璃化转变温度以上仍有活性的酶。我记得有篇论文尝试在某酶上到处做随机突变，那只是让一群研究生做无脑苦工。这篇不同。
HarryHirsch查看英文原文
The exciting thing is that there is real progress in increasing temperature stability of enzymes. That's the point of the article, engineering an enzyme that is still active above the glass transition temperature of the substrate. I remember a paper where they tried random mutations all over some enzyme, it was just mindless make-work for an army of graduate students. This one is different.
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