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Marine biodegradable fibers with high strength and elasticity were successfully fabricated from microbial polyesters using a melt-spinning method. Polymers were melted at temperatures lower than the constituent melting temperatures, and the obtained fibers were stretched at room temperature. The molecular weights of the fibers processed by this melt-spinning method remained unchanged, suggesting that the developed approach is very effective for polyhydroxyalkanoates, which typically exhibit low thermal stability during the melting process. The obtained fibers had tensile strengths >200 MPa and elongation at break of ∼200%, making them comparable to nonbiodegradable elastic fibers processed from polyethylene and polypropylene. It was confirmed that these fibers were completely degraded by both seawater from Tokyo Bay and freshwater from Sanshiro Pond after less than 1 month. Interestingly, periodically stacked lamellar structures of 200 nm that comprised at least 30 lamellae were generated following the biodegradation of the amorphous region of the fiber surface.

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