Novel urethanases for the enzymatic degradation of polyurethanes
AssigneeCovestro Intellectual Property GmbH & Co. KG
InventorsNatalie BITTNER, Hartmut NEFZGER, Gesa BEHNKEN, Gernot JÄGER, Swantje BEHNKEN, Lukas REISKY
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Abstract
The present invention relates to new urethanases for the enzymatic breakdown of polyurethanes and to an enzymatic process for the complete breakdown of polyurethanes into defined monomers.
Claims12
-11. (canceled)
A process for breaking down polyester polyurethanes into low-molecular-weight breakdown products, comprising the steps of
- a) cleaving the ester groups present in the polyester polyurethane;
- and
- b) cleaving the urethane groups present in the polyester polyurethane with a polypeptide that has urethanase activity;
- with the proviso that process steps a) and b) may be carried out in either order or else in parallel.
A method comprising utilizing a polypeptide having an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID No. 3, SEQ ID No. 2, SEQ ID No. 4, SEQ ID No. 5, SEQ ID No. 6, SEQ ID No. 8, SEQ ID No. 10 and variants of said polypeptides or of a GatA-similar polypeptide having an amino acid sequence in accordance with SEQ ID No. 7 or a variant thereof, wherein the polypeptide has urethanase activity in the enzymatic cleavage of urethane linkages.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.