Nam Hyeong Chan, Park Won Ho
Department of Organic Materials Engineering, College of Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, South Korea.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2020 Apr 13;6(4):2440-2449. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.0c00017. Epub 2020 Mar 16.
Marine pollution stemming from plastic microbeads (MBs) in personal care products has been substantially increased because of their nonbiodegradability and high adsorption capacity against persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in seawater. Moreover, the manufacturing process of MBs has been based on wet processes, such as emulsification, microfluidics, and precipitation. Therefore, a green process for obtaining biodegradable MBs is urgently necessary. Aliphatic polyesters, such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA, radiation-degradable) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL, radiation-cross-linkable), have biodegradability and melt processability. The eco-friendly melt electrospraying process is a simple and cost-effective method for the preparation of MBs without the need for organic reagents. In this study, the PLA and PCL MBs were obtained by adjusting the main processing parameters during the melt electrospraying process. The weight losses of PLA and PCL MBs in aqueous environments occurred faster than those of positive controls, and the thermal transition parameters were decreased with the hydrolytic degradation of MBs. In the POP adsorption test, the biodegradable MBs showed poor adsorption because of their low specific surface area. The results of the cleansing efficiency test indicated that biodegradable MBs have great potential as more sustainable cosmetics to replace nondegradable MBs.
由于个人护理产品中的塑料微珠（MBs）不可生物降解且对海水中的持久性有机污染物（POPs）具有高吸附能力，海洋污染问题已大幅加剧。此外，MBs的制造过程一直基于湿法工艺，如乳化、微流控和沉淀。因此，迫切需要一种获取可生物降解MBs的绿色工艺。脂肪族聚酯，如聚乳酸（PLA，可辐射降解）和聚己内酯（PCL，可辐射交联），具有生物可降解性和熔体加工性。环保的熔体电喷雾工艺是一种制备MBs的简单且经济高效的方法，无需使用有机试剂。在本研究中，通过调整熔体电喷雾过程中的主要工艺参数获得了PLA和PCL MBs。PLA和PCL MBs在水环境中的重量损失比阳性对照更快，且随着MBs的水解降解，热转变参数降低。在POP吸附试验中，可生物降解的MBs因其低比表面积而表现出较差的吸附性能。清洁效率测试结果表明，可生物降解的MBs作为更具可持续性的化妆品替代不可降解的MBs具有巨大潜力。
