Murillo-Morales Gabriel, Sethupathy Sivasamy, Zhang Meng, Xu Lingxia, Ghaznavi Amirreza, Xu Jie, Yang Bin, Sun Jianzhong, Zhu Daochen
Biofuels Institute, School of Emergency Management, School of Environmental Science and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, 212013 Zhenjiang, PR China.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
Int J Biol Macromol. 2023 May 1;236:123881. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123881. Epub 2023 Mar 7.
Polylactic acid (PLA) has been used in fused deposition method (FDM) based 3D printing for many years. Alkali lignin is an undervalued industrial by-product that could upgrade PLA's poor mechanical properties. This work presents a biotechnological approach consisting of a partial degradation of alkali lignin using Bacillus ligniniphilus laccase (Lacc) L1 for its use as a nucleating agent in a polylactic acid/thermoplastic polyurethane (PLA/TPU) blend. Results showed that adding enzymatically modified lignin (EL) increased the elasticity modulus to a maximum of 2.5-fold than the control and conferred a maximum biodegradability rate of 15 % after 6 months under the soil burial method. Furthermore, the printing quality rendered satisfactory smooth surfaces, geometries and a tunable addition of a woody color. These findings open a new door for using laccase as a tool to upgrade lignin's properties and its use as a scaffold in manufacturing more environmentally sustainable filaments with improved mechanical properties for 3D printing.
聚乳酸（PLA）已在基于熔融沉积成型法（FDM）的3D打印中使用多年。碱木质素是一种未得到充分利用的工业副产品，它可以改善聚乳酸较差的机械性能。本研究提出了一种生物技术方法，即利用嗜木质芽孢杆菌漆酶（Lacc）L1对碱木质素进行部分降解，将其用作聚乳酸/热塑性聚氨酯（PLA/TPU）共混物中的成核剂。结果表明，添加酶法改性木质素（EL）后，弹性模量最高比对照提高了2.5倍，在土壤掩埋法下6个月后的最大生物降解率为15%。此外，打印质量呈现出令人满意的光滑表面、几何形状以及可调节的木质颜色。这些发现为将漆酶用作改善木质素性能的工具以及将其用作制造更具环境可持续性的长丝（具有改善的机械性能用于3D打印）的支架打开了一扇新的大门。
