Photonics and Terahertz Technology, Ruhr University Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany.
Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Str. 10, 35043 Marburg, Germany.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2021 Feb;163:111950. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111950. Epub 2021 Jan 11.
A big challenge of the 21st century is to cope with the huge amounts of plastic waste on Earth. Especially the oceans are heavily polluted with plastics. To counteract this issue, biological (enzymatic) plastic decomposition is increasingly gaining attention. Recently it was shown that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) can be degraded in a saltwater-based environment using bacterial PETase produced by a marine diatom. At moderate temperatures, plastic biodegradation is slow and requires sensitive methods for detection, at least at initial stages. However, conventional methods for verifying the plastic degradation are either complex, expensive, time-consuming or they interfere with the degradation process. Here, we adapt lensless digital holographic microscopy (LDHM) as a new application for efficiently monitoring enzymatic degradation of a PET glycol copolymer (PETG). LDHM is a cost-effective, compact and sensitive optical method. We demonstrate enzymatic PETG degradation over a time course of 43 days employing numerical analysis of LDHM images.
二十一世纪的一个巨大挑战是应对地球上大量的塑料废物。特别是海洋受到了严重的塑料污染。为了解决这个问题，生物（酶）塑料分解越来越受到关注。最近有研究表明，在基于盐水的环境中，可以使用海洋硅藻产生的细菌 PETase 来降解聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET）。在中等温度下，塑料的生物降解速度较慢，需要灵敏的检测方法，至少在初始阶段需要。然而，验证塑料降解的传统方法要么复杂、昂贵、耗时，要么会干扰降解过程。在这里，我们将无透镜数字全息显微镜（LDHM）作为一种新的应用，用于有效地监测酶促降解聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯二醇共聚物（PETG）。LDHM 是一种具有成本效益、紧凑和灵敏的光学方法。我们通过对 LDHM 图像的数值分析，在 43 天的时间内证明了酶促 PETG 降解。
