Scientists create "living plastic" that can self-destruct on command
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In brief: Plastic that can breaks itself down when no longer needed sounds like something from sci-fi, but Chinese scientists have moved the idea closer to reality. Their prototype embeds dormant bacteria inside a polymer, creating a material that can activate on command and degrade without leaving behind microplastic fragments.
Scientists at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology have developed a "living plastic" with a built-in kill switch. The material contains spores from engineered Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium, that remain inactive during normal use.
When exposed to the trigger, the spores wake up and produce enzymes that digest the plastic from within.
The work, published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials, builds on earlier living-plastic experiments that mostly relied on a single enzyme.
The team used two separate bacterial strains that...
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