Using microbes like acetobacter xylinium it is possible to engineer polymers like paper from cellulose.

Can the reverse be achieved? Imagine if we could break the polymer bonds and get back the raw material.

It would create a natural factory with no toxic by-product and benefit to both the producer and consumer.

Can this be achieved by using natural agents like biocatalysts?

 

Please advise.

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited February 5, 201411 yr by petrushka.googol

I think you misunderstand something here. Cellulose is a polymer and is used to produce paper. Acetobacter xylinum is able to produce cellulose.

Edited February 5, 201411 yr by CharonY

Decomposing cellulose? Yes, Nature does it. Fungi act earlier than bacteria I believe. It goes faster at trees, but books get eaten by fungi as well.

 

For man-made polymers, the situation is as varied as the polymers themselves. Very few ones are long-lived.

- Most can be decomposed at heat to produce some ugly viscous stinky liquid able tu burn; much research work is invested in getting better useable liquids to replace gasoline.

- Most decompose under Sunlight. A plastic bag is in pieces after one summer. That's much faster than a dead tree. This worry is overemphasized.

- A more serious worry is where the decomposition products land. From PE, PP I don't care; from PVC I do; and depending on the additives, from PET, ABS, PC, PA.

 

So bacteria or fungi are just one possibility, not the easiest one, among many. They work for some special polymers (one is made from starch), not with unfunctionalized ones like PE.