The environmental impact arising from poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) waste is notable worldwide. Enzymatic PET hydrolysis can provide chemicals that serve as intermediates for value-added product synthesis and savings in the resources. In the present work, some reaction parameters were evaluated on the hydrolysis of post-consumer PET (PC-PET) using a cutinase from Humicola insolens (HiC). The increase in PC-PET specific area leads to an 8.5-fold increase of the initial enzymatic hydrolysis rate (from 0.2 to 1.7 mmol L^-1 h^-1), showing that this parameter plays a crucial role in PET hydrolysis reaction. The effect of HiC concentration was investigated, and the enzymatic PC-PET hydrolysis kinetic parameters were estimated based on three different mathematical models describing heterogeneous biocatalysis. The model that best fits the experimental data (R² = 0.981) indicated 1.68 mg_protein mL^-1 as a maximum value of the enzyme concentration to optimize the reaction rate. The HiC thermal stability was evaluated, considering that it is a key parameter for its efficient use in PET degradation. The enzyme half-life was shown to be 110 h at 70 ºC and pH 7.0, which outperforms most of the known enzymes displaying PET hydrolysis activity. The results evidence that HiC is a very promising biocatalyst for efficient PET depolymerization.

聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯 (PET) 废物对环境造成的影响在世界范围内引人注目。酶促 PET 水解可以提供用作中间体的化学品，用于增值产品合成和资源节约。在目前的工作中，使用来自特异腐质霉(HiC)的角质酶对消费后 PET (PC-PET) 的水解进行了一些反应参数的评估。PC-PET比面积的增加导致初始酶水解速率增加8.5倍（从0.2到1.7 mmol L ^-1 h ^-1)，表明该参数在 PET 水解反应中起着至关重要的作用。研究了 HiC 浓度的影响，并基于描述多相生物催化的三种不同数学模型估计了酶促 PC-PET 水解动力学参数。最适合实验数据的模型 (R ² = 0.981) 表明 1.68 mg_蛋白质mL ^-1作为酶浓度的最大值以优化反应速率。评估了 HiC 热稳定性，认为它是其在 PET 降解中有效使用的关键参数。在 70 ºC 和 pH 7.0 下，酶的半衰期为 110 小时，优于大多数显示 PET 水解活性的已知酶。结果表明，HiC 是一种非常有前景的生物催化剂，可用于有效的 PET 解聚。