Harvesting the marine Plastisphere for novel cleaning concepts
ACRONYM
PLASTISEA
Title
Harvesting the marine Plastisphere for novel cleaning concepts
General information
Goal: The main goals of PLASTISEA are the delivery of novel enzymes and microorganisms for the development of novel and innovative strategies for reduction of input and removal of micro- and nanoparticles of synthetic polymers (PET, PEF, PU, PE and PA) from the marine environment. Thereby, PLASTISEA will mine marine biodiversity obtained from the North Atlantic garbage patch, global marine incubation experiments and large existing marine strain collections. The mining of these will deliver a large collection of functional enzymes and bacteria, archaea and fungi acting on mainly PET, PU, but also on PEF, PE and PA as part of a biotechnology toolbox of highly active enzymes (plastizymes) and microorganisms (plastibugs) acting on synthetic polymers. The discovery pipeline of PET active enzymes from previous projects will be refined and broadened to identify enzymes acting on PU, PEF, PE and PA, where there is hardly any enzyme available to date. Furthermore, PLASTISEA will develop novel technologies and biosensors to detect MPs in the marine and other environments. In addition, PLASTISEA will deliver technologies at the proof of concept level for potential removal of micro- and nanoparticles from marine habitats. This will be done using aquarium-based technology including plastic binding and hydrolyzing enzymes immobilized to experimental panels and filtering devices to assess the possibility of removal of particles from marine habitats at the proof of concept level.
In previous projects (like MetaCat, INMARE and others) the focus of the research was on finding any type of enzyme that could be involved in the degradation of native and non-native polymers. The projects were successful and are able to give us hints and point out in what direction to look for these types of enzymes, but to date only a really small number of reasonable functional enzymes exists. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new enzymes even for PET and PU. Furthermore, PLASTISEA aims to develop at the proof of concept level novel applied technologies to monitor and potentially reduce the intake of plastic pollution into our oceans.
Start
February, 2020
End
January, 2023
Funding (total)
522000
Funding (GEOMAR)
-
Funding body / Programme
-
BMBF
/
Coordination
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel (GEOMAR), Germany
Contact
Partners
University of Hamburg (UHH), Germany
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), Germany
Aachen University (RWTH), Germany
University of Kiel (CAU), Germany
GALAB Laboratories GmbH Hamburg, Germany
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), Germany
Aachen University (RWTH), Germany
University of Kiel (CAU), Germany
GALAB Laboratories GmbH Hamburg, Germany
