The stories of turning water into wine or knitting straw into gold are one thing, but a new study shows that scientists can transform garbage. . . Tylenol?
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh were able to convert plastic waste into paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the Tylenol analgesic. Strange still, they achieved the alchemical feat using bacteria E. coli.
“We are able to transform a prolific environmental and social waste into such an important medication worldwide in a way that is complete impossible, use chemistry alone or use biology alone,” says Coautechnistist Wallace study. To Chemaceh to Chemaceh.
The research team begged with polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common plastic that is in food packaging and polyester clothing. Using established chemical methods, they broke the PET plastic in a precursor molecule and then added it to a cell culture of E. coli That was genetically modified.
Enzymes in the modified E. coli Bacteria were able to convert the plastic precursor into paracetamol 92% of the time. The transformation is based on a chemical process known as a loss streak, which can turn a child or molecule into a different child or molecule. Scientists have known about shattered recruitment for more than 100 years, but generally observe the phenomenon in a flask or a test tube.
The research group is now working with pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Astrazeneca, one of the study sponsors, to replicate the same chemical transformations on a larger scale.
New research is not the first to observe the way in which bacteria can be deployed to use the plastic useful. Researchers have previously studied how wastewater bacteria that are in urban river roads use a special enzyme to chew plastic garbage and turn it into carbon -based foods.
As we deal with the environmental and cascade health effects that decades of proliferating plastics have forged on the planet, capable bacteria or plastic conversion into harmless or even useful molecules are a promising research area.