I am carrying an experiment on which I chronically feed PLA particles to ascidians to check if they accumulate the material or are capable of digesting it. I am also trying with common PP and PET micro particles.
The common tissue digestion methods I've read and tried end up dissolving the bioplastic, so I cannot start my experiment until I find a protocol that digest tissue and not PLA.
I've tried KOH, NaCL, H2O2, HCl and HNO3...all with the same results. PLA literally vanishes.
Formic acid and sodium citrate work for digesting spiculae, and PLA resists the digestion. But this doesn't work with tissue.
Haven't tried yet sonicating or using proteases.
Any suggestions?
Dear Guillermo,
What are the concentrations of bases or acids that you have used? And the temperature?
SB
Article Pretreatment and Anaerobic Co-digestion of Selected PHB and ...
Stéphane Bruzaud
Hi thank you first of all.
*KOH I used 10% w/w at 60oC for 24 hours.
*NaOH it says 10M to digest tissue, I also tried with 1 and 5M with same results. Almost instantly (although I didn't expect anything less for the 10M)
*NHO3 60% Room temperature overnight.
Lemme check what you sent, thanks again
The team did not use PLA as an edible element. The application is intended for rigid packaging.
Hola Edla Maria Bezerra Lima my concern is that these packaging's biodegradation is only tested in a compost facility. I am trying to see the effects on marine organisms and see if I can develop a protocol to test bioplastics.
By the way Stéphane Bruzaud almost by mistake I discovered what I needed. One of my ascidians died during night and in the early morning all her (named Berta) insides were digested by the gut bacteria leaving behind a soup of digested tissue and intact microplastics. No acid, no base, no oxidizing agent, only sweet sweet natural processes.
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