ABSTRACT:

The production of plastic is still continuously increase; in 2021 globally 368 million tons were produced, while the plastic disposal is increasing 3-4% each year.

Physical abrasion or UV light, heat and microbial action induced degradation leads to the fragmentation of plastic wastes. The formed PET microparticles are omnipresent, in surface waters as well as in deep-sea sediments. PET particles ingested by animals, enter the food chain and accumulate in the organisms.

The EnzImPET project joins the emerging trends of plastic recycling, removal of plastic pollution, targeting to employ the large experience of its research team in biocatalysis,

Enzyme immobilization, engineering of enzymatic processes to the field of PET-degrading enzymes. The project will provide large content of originality within the field of treatment of PET pollution by developing novel immobilized multi-enzymatic systems allowing control, by detection and removal of microPET pollution of aqueous environment.

The immobilized enzyme system will be tailored to the targeted application through rigorous design and optimization procedures included at the level of each main objective:

· development of optimized co-immobilization strategies of PET-degrading enzymes;

· development of efficient PET-degrading immobilized biocatalyst with applicability for microPET degradation/removal;

· development of immobilized enzymatic system with applicability for microPET detection.