🦾 New AI-designed enzyme breaks down plastic foam into recyclable building blocks

• An AI-designed enzyme can break down 98 percent of polyurethane in 12 hours at industrial scale.
• Polyurethane is a type of plastic used in foam cushions, mattresses, insulation and other products. 22 million tons were produced last year.
• The process recovers pure building blocks that can be used to manufacture new plastic.

AI tools created effective enzyme

Researchers have developed an enzyme that can break down polyurethane into its original building blocks. Polyurethane is a type of plastic used in foam cushions, mattresses, insulation and other products. The world produced 22 million metric tons of polyurethane in 2024.

The researchers used neural networks to design the enzyme. They combined two AI systems: Pythia-Pocket and Pythia. These tools analyzed which amino acids were needed to bind to polyurethane while forming a stable structure.

Of the 24 highest-ranked proteins the software evaluated, 21 showed catalytic activity. Eight of them performed better than the previously best-known enzyme. The most effective enzyme had 30 times higher activity than previously known enzymes.

The process works at industrial scale

When the researchers combined the new enzyme with the chemical diethylene glycol and heated the mixture to 50 degrees Celsius, the results became even better. Under these conditions, the enzyme was over 450 times more active than the best natural enzyme.

The enzyme broke down 98 percent of the polyurethane in 12 hours. It was stable enough to be used three times with fresh mixtures of polyurethane before the activity began to decline.

Large-scale tests confirm results

Tests at kilogram scale showed that 95 percent or more of the material was broken down into the original building blocks from which the polyurethane was manufactured. This differs from previous methods where diethylene glycol alone could only partially break down the material at high temperatures. That method also left a complicated mixture of chemicals that could not be reused and was typically incinerated as hazardous waste.

The recovered building blocks can be used to manufacture new polyurethane. This makes the process a functional recycling method for industrial use.

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