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What are microplastics?

Microplastics are small plastic particles measuring less than 5 millimeters in size.

They are almost everywhere.

Ocean

Daily life

Soil

Iceberg

They can accumulate in the human body through the food chain, potentially leading to various health concerns.

To address this issue, identifying and upcycling microplastics is crucial.
However, current methods face several limitations.

Identification of microplastics is generally carried out by methods such as spectroscopy and chromatography, still needs to improve in terms of portability and accessibility to be widely used by the public.

For the degradation of microplastics, traditional methods have problems of pollution and difficulty in utilising the products.

How to change the current situation ?

Identification

We have developed a colourimetric biosensor capable of identifying various microplastic categories using anchoring peptides that selectively bind to specific plastic types. By modifying gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with these peptides, we have created a reagent that produces a colorimetric response upon interaction with microplastics. This response, indicated by a visible color change, allows for both qualitative detection and quantitative analysis of the plastics.

One-Pot Synthesis

Our team has successfully developed a one-pot synthesis for the conversion of PET into vanillin. It can be divided into two parts. Initially, PET is degraded into terephthalic acid (TPA) through surface display technology. Subsequently, the TPA enters the cell and is converted into the high-value product vanillin using a multi-enzyme cascade system.

SUMMARY

Through the application of machine learning and directed evolution techniques, we significantly enhanced the detection accuracy of anchoring peptides and the efficiency of PET plastic degradation. Ultimately, we developed an integrated platform that combines detection, degradation, and real-time data visualization through team hardware, providing a sustainable solution for the reutilization of plastic waste.

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