UV Pretreatment Impairs the Enzymatic Degradation of Polyethylene Terephthalate

• Main Authors: Patricia Falkenstein, Daniel Gräsing, Pavlo Bielytskyi, Wolfgang Zimmermann, Jörg Matysik, Ren Wei, Chen Song
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-04-01
• Series: Frontiers in Microbiology
• Subjects: solid-state NMR; chain dynamics; surface crystallinity; polyester hydrolases; plastic recycling
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2020.00689/full

The biocatalytic degradation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) emerged recently as a promising alternative plastic recycling method. However, limited activity of previously known enzymes against post-consumer PET materials still prevents the application on an industrial scale. In this study, the influence of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation as a potential pretreatment method for the enzymatic degradation of PET was investigated. Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) and 1H solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis indicated a shortening of the polymer chains of UV-treated PET due to intra-chain scissions. The degradation of UV-treated PET films by a polyester hydrolase resulted in significantly lower weight losses compared to the untreated sample. We also examined site-specific and segmental chain dynamics over a time scale of sub-microseconds to seconds using centerband-only detection of exchange, rotating-frame spin-lattice relaxation (T1ρ), and dipolar chemical shift correlation experiments which revealed an overall increase in the chain rigidity of the UV-treated sample. The observed dynamic changes are most likely associated with the increased crystallinity of the surface, where a decreased accessibility for the enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis was found. Moreover, our NMR study provided further knowledge on how polymer chain conformation and dynamics of PET can mechanistically influence the enzymatic degradation.