Production, Extraction, and Characterization of Green Biodegradable Bioplastics Polyhydroxybutyrates (PHB) for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Biodegradable plastics are that kind of plastics that will decompose naturally, when environmental microorganisms metabolize and break down the chemical bonds present in the structure of biopolymer. Bio-plastics offer an advantage to earth by reducing carbon footprint and use of fossil fuel. Bio-plastics are completely biodegradable and can be recycled. The focus of the study was to produce green bioplastics by utilizing the sugar hydrolysate of Hemp fibers. Producing of Bioplastic was pursued in fermentation experiments, where HEMP was utilized as feedstock to produce PHB. Hemp fibers were initially pretreated, and then enzymatically hydrolyzed to produce PHB. Hemp can produce PHB (poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) when the environmental conditions are controlled. The objective of the study was to optimize simple sugar availability from hemp for Ralstonia eutropha. Powedered hemp with the contration of 5% NaOH, and 1.5g/ L of enzyme addition was found to yield the best restluts in the production process of Bioplastics as the fractional insoluble solids (FIS) of ≃ 61 % was significantly better compared to other combinations of pre-treatments studied. The enzyme hydrolysis yield of 10.9 % and PHB yield of ≃ 43 % were also found in this study.