Chemical Engineering Discipline, School of Engineering, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia.
Advanced Engineering Platform, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia.
Crit Rev Biotechnol. 2024 May;44(3):477-494. doi: 10.1080/07388551.2023.2170861. Epub 2023 Feb 14.
Plastic biodegradation has emerged as a sustainable approach and green alternative in handling the ever-increasing accumulation of plastic wastes in the environment. The complete biodegradation of polyethylene terephthalate is one of the most recent breakthroughs in the field of plastic biodegradation. Despite the success, the effective and complete biodegradation of a wide variety of plastics is still far from the practical implementation, and an on-going effort has been mainly devoted to the exploration of novel microorganisms and enzymes for plastic biodegradation. However, alternative strategies which enhance the existing biodegradation process should not be neglected in the continuous advancement of this field. Thus, this review highlights various strategies which have shown to improve the biodegradation of plastics, which include the pretreatment of plastics using UV irradiation, thermal, or chemical treatments to increase the susceptibility of plastics toward microbial action. Alternative pretreatment strategies are also suggested and compared with the existing techniques. Besides, the effects of additives such as pro-oxidants, natural polymers, and surfactants on plastic biodegradation are discussed. In addition, considerations governing the biodegradation performance, such as the formulation of biodegradation medium, cell-free biocatalysis, and physico-chemical properties of plastics, are addressed. Lastly, the challenges and future prospects for the advancement of plastic biodegradation are also highlighted.
塑料的生物降解作为一种可持续的方法和绿色替代方案，在处理环境中日益增加的塑料废物积累方面具有重要意义。聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯的完全生物降解是塑料生物降解领域的最新突破之一。尽管取得了成功，但广泛的各种塑料的有效和完全生物降解仍然远远没有实际实施，并且主要致力于探索新型微生物和酶用于塑料生物降解。然而，在该领域的不断发展中，不应忽视增强现有生物降解过程的替代策略。因此，本综述强调了各种已被证明可提高塑料生物降解的策略，包括使用紫外线照射、热或化学处理对塑料进行预处理，以提高塑料对微生物作用的敏感性。还提出了替代预处理策略，并与现有技术进行了比较。此外，还讨论了添加剂（如促氧化剂、天然聚合物和表面活性剂）对塑料生物降解的影响。此外，还讨论了控制生物降解性能的考虑因素，例如生物降解介质的配方、无细胞生物催化和塑料的物理化学性质。最后，还强调了塑料生物降解的挑战和未来展望。
