Selective Modification of the Product Profile of Biocatalytic Hydrolyzed PET via Product-Specific Medium Engineering.

Over the past years, enzymatic depolymerization of PET, one of the most widely used plastics worldwide, has become very efficient leading to the end products terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG) used for PET re-synthesis. Potent alternatives to these monomers are the intermediates BHET and MHET, the mono- and di-esters of TPA and EG which avoid total hydrolysis and can serve as single starting materials for direct re-polymerization. This study therefore aimed to selectively prepare those intermediates through reaction medium engineering during the biocatalytic hydrolysis of PET.