A mini-review: current advances in polyethylene biodegradation

Bardají, Danae Kala Rodríguez; Moretto, Jéssica Aparecida Silva; Furlan, João Pedro Rueda; Stehling, Eliana Guedes

doi:10.1007/s11274-020-2808-5

Cited by 71 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Polyethylene reached a widespread use in food and beverages, in the 1950s (Bardají et al, 2020). PE has several characteristics that made it attractive in trade, like low cost, ease of manufacture, chemical resistance, processability, flexibility, versatility, toughness, and excellent electrical insulation (Ronca, 2017;Bardají et al, 2020). Hence, PE has a large range of applications, such as food packaging, textiles, lab equipment, and automotive components (Arutchelvi et al, 2008).…”

Section: Polyethylene (Pe)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine Environmental Plastic Pollution: Mitigation by Microorganism Degradation and Recycling Valorization

et al. 2020

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Plastics are very useful materials and present numerous advantages in the daily life of individuals and society. However, plastics are accumulating in the environment and due to their low biodegradability rate, this problem will persist for centuries. Until recently, oceans were treated as places to dispose of litter, thus the persistent substances are causing serious pollution issues. Plastic and microplastic waste has a negative environmental, social, and economic impact, e.g., causing injury/death to marine organisms and entering the food chain, which leads to health problems. The development of solutions and methods to mitigate marine (micro)plastic pollution is in high demand. There is a knowledge gap in this field, reason why research on this thematic is increasing. Recent studies reported the biodegradation of some types of polymers using different bacteria, biofilm forming bacteria, bacterial consortia, and fungi. Biodegradation is influenced by several factors, from the type of microorganism to the type of polymers, their physicochemical properties, and the environment conditions (e.g., temperature, pH, UV radiation). Currently, green environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic made from renewable feedstocks are starting to enter the market. This review covers the period from 1964 to April 2020 and comprehensively gathers investigation on marine plastic and microplastic pollution, negative consequences of plastic use, and bioplastic production. It lists the most useful methods for plastic degradation and recycling valorization, including degradation mediated by microorganisms (biodegradation) and the methods used to detect and analyze the biodegradation.

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Section: Polyethylene (Pe)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine Environmental Plastic Pollution: Mitigation by Microorganism Degradation and Recycling Valorization

et al. 2020

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“…Given the chemical structures of LDPE and HDPE, that was unexpected. This result is linked to the fact that after incubation both the KCBI and the ECBI of HDPE MPs were consistently higher than those of LDPE microplastics [41]. The dissolution of carbonyl bonds within the polymeric structure could be the mechanism behind chain scission and the subsequent production of NPs [12,42].…”

Section: Nanoplastics Generation and Fatementioning

confidence: 99%

Nanoplastic Generation from Secondary PE Microplastics: Microorganism-Induced Fragmentation

et al. 2022

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Concern regarding the pollution of the marine environment with plastics has been rising in recent years. Plastic waste residing in and interacting with the environment fragments into secondary particles in the micro- and nanoscale, whose negative impacts on the environment are even greater than those of the parent items. In this work, secondary high density polyethylene (HDPE) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) microplastics were produced by irradiation of virgin films following mechanical fragmentation. The fragments with size ranging from 250 μm to 2 mm were selected for subsequent microcosm experiments. Incubation for 120 days in seawater inoculated with two marine communities, Agios, acclimatized to utilizing plastics as a carbon source, and Souda, as was collected at the Souda bay (Crete, Greece), resulted in biofilm formation by polyethylene (PE) degraders. Monthly FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) examination of the samples revealed changes in the chemical structure of the surface of the polymers. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) was employed and nano- and microparticles with sizes in the range between 56 nm and 4.5 μm were detected in the seawater of inoculated microcosms. It was thus demonstrated that weathered plastics particles can biodeteriorate and biofragment as a result of biofilm attachment, resulting in the production of nanoplastics due to microbial activity.

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“…PE is the most-used plastic worldwide due to its simple chemical structure (see Table 1), making it very easy and cheap to process. It is a tenacious thermoplastic, obtained by the polymerization of ethylene [28].…”

Section: Types 211 Polyethylene (Pe)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conversion of Plastic Waste into Supports for Nanostructured Heterogeneous Catalysts: Application in Environmental Remediation

et al. 2021

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Plastics are ubiquitous in our society and are used in many industries, such as packaging, electronics, the automotive industry, and medical and health sectors, and plastic waste is among the types of waste of higher environmental concern. The increase in the amount of plastic waste produced daily has increased environmental problems, such as pollution by micro-plastics, contamination of the food chain, biodiversity degradation and economic losses. The selective and efficient conversion of plastic waste for applications in environmental remediation, such as by obtaining composites, is a strategy of the scientific community for the recovery of plastic waste. The development of polymeric supports for efficient, sustainable, and low-cost heterogeneous catalysts for the treatment of organic/inorganic contaminants is highly desirable yet still a great challenge; this will be the main focus of this work. Common commercial polymers, like polystyrene, polypropylene, polyethylene therephthalate, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride, are addressed herein, as are their main physicochemical properties, such as molecular mass, degree of crystallinity and others. Additionally, we discuss the environmental and health risks of plastic debris and the main recycling technologies as well as their issues and environmental impact. The use of nanomaterials raises concerns about toxicity and reinforces the need to apply supports; this means that the recycling of plastics in this way may tackle two issues. Finally, we dissert about the advances in turning plastic waste into support for nanocatalysts for environmental remediation, mainly metal and metal oxide nanoparticles.

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A mini-review: current advances in polyethylene biodegradation

Cited by 71 publications

References 96 publications

Marine Environmental Plastic Pollution: Mitigation by Microorganism Degradation and Recycling Valorization

Marine Environmental Plastic Pollution: Mitigation by Microorganism Degradation and Recycling Valorization

Nanoplastic Generation from Secondary PE Microplastics: Microorganism-Induced Fragmentation

Conversion of Plastic Waste into Supports for Nanostructured Heterogeneous Catalysts: Application in Environmental Remediation

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