Hi, how can we find biodegradeability of a polymer film? Is the soil burial method an efficient method of biodegradeability? Could anyone suggest any efficient method?
Dear Gopinathan, Thank you for your valuable sugestions. Any other sugestions please...
Hi, there are several standard methods for determination of materials biodegradability. For insatnce http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=34100
Hi, this is very depending what kind of polymer is it. If you have already information about a similar polymer biodegraded by bacteria, you could try to make short in vitro biodegradation by adding nutrient media, specific bacteria and your polymer.
Hi, Greetings of the day
I am using Chitosan and Gelatin as a Blended film.
Hi Shakeel,
if you are using thin films then soil burial in a standard soil (eg John Innes No2) should give you a result within days. Usually the end point is that the film has been broken it two. This gives you a crude degradation rate. Dry weight loss is more rigorous and can give you a decay rate. The difficulty in soil burial is how to produce a control ie a sterile soil that still chemically interacts with the polymer but doe snot cause biological degradation. In the past I have used either Mercuric chloride or Sodium Azide to produce microbially inactive soil. However both the chemicals are unpleasant and difficult to dispose of. I think there is a 'chloroform method' for biological inactivation of soil too? Autoclaving changes teh chemistry of the soil, and in my experience very rarely achieves sterilisation.
The problem with broth tests etc is that either you have to add known 'test organisms' to degrade your polymer or when you add soil to the broth some organisms won't grow and others will out compete.
Enzymes play main role for degrading any type of materials. For finding the best way, you can follow some steps:
1. Recognize the structural similarity of the polymer and the substrate that its enzyme has been reported.
2. Research about the best microorganisms that can produce that special enzyme.
3. Prepare a profit culture media for growing the microorganism and use the polymer as carbon source of the media.
4. Using the polymer by microorganism as a carbon source confirm its biodegradability of polymer. It is necessary to do some analysis to prove that the molecular weight of the polymer is changed during the time.
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