In Future Goggles And Vehicle Lights Can Be Made From Sugar

Natural raw materials to replace glass soon and all set to find application in the mass production of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), better known as acrylic glass. The raw materials can be used as an alternative in goggles and vehicle lights.

An enzyme that can be used as a precursor of methyl methacrylate (MMA), polymerising which is the key to PMMA's manufacture is developed by Dr. Thore Rohwerder, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, and his mentor Dr. Roland Muller, from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

Keeping the environmental causes in mind, the researchers promise that the biotechnological process can soon replace the various harmful chemicals production processes. The new enzymes discovered is called 2-hydroxyisobutyryl-CoA mutase and it makes it possible to turn a linear C4 carbon structure into a branched one. This type of compounds are precursors of MMA.

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