The discovery was made by researchers from the University of Queensland School in Australia.
Some kind of worm that can disappear with the plastic that eats it? It sounds too good to be true, but a team of researchers a University of Queensland Schoolin Australia, he discovered just that.
Scientists from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences found that the “superworm”, Zophobas morio, can eat styrofoam thanks to a bacterial enzyme in your gut. Their findings offer new ones insights on the biodegradation of plastics and can help solve one of the most pressing environmental problems of our time: plastic pollution.
Led by Dr. Chris Rinke, the team’s research was conducted over the course of three weeks. During this time they fed the superworms with different diets, some with polystyrene foam, others with bran, and still others on a fasting diet.
“We found that superworms fed a polystyrene-only diet not only survived, but also had marginal weight gain,” Rinke said. “This suggests that worms can get energy from polystyrene, probably with the help of their gut microbes.”
Using metagenomics, the scientists were able to identify several enzymes encoded in the gut of the worms with the ability to degrade polystyrene and styrene. The long-term goal is to design these same enzymes, which can degrade plastic waste in recycling plants through mechanical shredding followed by enzymatic biodegradation.
“Superworms are like mini recycling plants, crushing the Styrofoam in the mouth and then feeding the bacteria in the gut,” Rinke said. like bioplastics. ‘
The next step is to grow gut bacteria in the laboratory and further test their ability to degrade polystyrene. Research co-author, PhD student Jiarui Sun, explains, ‘We can then see how we can scale this process to a level necessary for an entire recycling facility.’
The research was published in an article in the online journal Microbial Genomics.
* Through Designboom
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Source: Terra
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