Yang Yue, Zhou Xiaoli, Zhou Zixun, Qian Xiujuan, Zhou Jie, Chen Minjiao, Dong Weiliang, Jiang Min
Key Laboratory for Waste Plastics Biocatalytic Degradation and Recycling, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
Environ Technol. 2025 Apr;46(11):1791-1803. doi: 10.1080/09593330.2024.2405662. Epub 2024 Sep 21.
With the increasing focus on environmental friendliness and sustainable development, extensive research has been conducted on the biodegradation of plastics. The non-hydrolyzable, highly hydrophobic, and high-molecular-weight properties of polyethylene (PE) pose challenges for cell interaction and biodegradation of PE substrates. To overcome these obstacles, PE films were treated with low-temperature plasma before biodegradation. The morphology, surface chemistry, molecular weight, and weight loss of PE films after plasma treatment and biodegradation were studied. The plasma treatment decreased the surface water contact angle, formed C-O and C = O groups, and decreased the molecular weight of PE films. With the increased pretreatment time, the biodegradation efficiency rose to 2.6% from 0.63% after 20 days of incubation. The mechanism was proposed that the surface oxygen-containing groups formed by plasma treatment can facilitate the bio-accessibility and be further decomposed and utilised by the microbes. This study provided an effective and rapid pretreatment strategy for improving biodegradation of PE.
随着对环境友好性和可持续发展的关注度不断提高，人们对塑料的生物降解进行了广泛研究。聚乙烯（PE）的不可水解、高度疏水和高分子量特性给PE底物的细胞相互作用和生物降解带来了挑战。为了克服这些障碍，在生物降解之前对PE薄膜进行了低温等离子体处理。研究了等离子体处理和生物降解后PE薄膜的形态、表面化学、分子量和重量损失。等离子体处理降低了表面水接触角，形成了C-O和C=O基团，并降低了PE薄膜的分子量。随着预处理时间的增加，在培养20天后，生物降解效率从0.63%提高到了2.6%。提出的机制是，等离子体处理形成的表面含氧基团可以促进生物可及性，并被微生物进一步分解和利用。该研究为提高PE的生物降解性提供了一种有效且快速的预处理策略。
