Project description
Enzymes for a sustainable polymer industry
Many items we use in everyday life are made of polymeric materials such as plastics and are of fossil origin. However, we need to redesign the polymer chain using sustainable raw materials, processes, and recycling. Enzymes offer eco-friendly solutions for this shift but face challenges like high costs, low stability, and inefficiency. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the COMENZE project aims to address these issues by integrating computational and experimental methods to enhance enzyme discovery and engineering. By developing optimised enzymes and bio-based polymers, COMENZE seeks to foster a sustainable polymer industry and train researchers to drive innovations in the field.
Objective
Polymeric materials are ubiquitous in our daily lives but they have a predominantly fossil origin, with low degradability at their end-of-
life. Transitioning to a circular polymer economy requires a rethinking of the entire value chain, from the raw materials, tools, and processes used to polymer design degradation and recycling. Enzymes are eco-friendly and sustainable tools that tackle many industrial applications. However, biocatalysis in the polymer field remains mostly unexplored due to i) enzymes high cost and low stability under reaction conditions, ii) enzymes inefficiency in converting bio-based monomers into cost-effective building blocks, and iii) lack of knowledge in key enzyme-polymer interactions that can control the final polymer performance and degradability features. Computational tools have shown immense power to revolutionize the field of enzyme engineering in a time and cost effective way. However, there is currently a clear lack of researchers combining computational and experimental skills, capable of determining future directions for the optimization of biocatalytic processes for the sustainable molecular design of polymers.
To foster the transition to a bio-based polymer industry, COMENZE aims to develop enzymatic strategies for improving the eco-design and development of future sustainable polymers. This will be achieved by combining cutting-edge computational and experimental approaches for enzyme discovery and engineering through in-silico modeling, simulation, and translation of results into wet labs to validate enzymatic reactions. COMENZE will train the next generation of researchers by equipping 10 DCs with the skills to revolutionize the polymer circularity by delivering new optimized enzymes and bioprocesses, newly identified bio-based building blocks, and functionalized polymers with innovative bio-upcycling and biodegradation end-of-life options.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- natural scienceschemical sciencescatalysisbiocatalysis
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsenzymes
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral NetworksCoordinator
1099 085 Lisboa
Portugal