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      The Molecular Level Characterization of Biodegradable Polymers Originated from Polyethylene Using Non-Oxygenated Polyethylene Wax as a Carbon Source for Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production

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          Abstract

          There is an increasing demand for bio-based polymers that are developed from recycled materials. The production of biodegradable polymers can include bio-technological (utilizing microorganisms or enzymes) or chemical synthesis procedures. This report demonstrates the corroboration of the molecular structure of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) obtained by the conversion of waste polyethylene (PE) via non-oxygenated PE wax (N-PEW) as an additional carbon source for a bacterial species. The N-PEW, obtained from a PE pyrolysis reaction, has been found to be a beneficial carbon source for PHA production with Cupriavidus necator H16. The production of the N-PEW is an alternative to oxidized polyethylene wax (O-PEW) (that has been used as a carbon source previously) as it is less time consuming to manufacture and offers fewer industrial applications. A range of molecular structural analytical techniques were performed on the PHAs obtained; which included nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). Our study showed that the PHA formed from N-PEW contained 3-hydroxybutyrate (HB) with 11 mol% of 3-hydroxyvalerate (HV) units.

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          Biological degradation of plastics: a comprehensive review.

          Aamer Ali Shah, Fariha Hasan, Abdul Hameed … (2008)
          Lack of degradability and the closing of landfill sites as well as growing water and land pollution problems have led to concern about plastics. With the excessive use of plastics and increasing pressure being placed on capacities available for plastic waste disposal, the need for biodegradable plastics and biodegradation of plastic wastes has assumed increasing importance in the last few years. Awareness of the waste problem and its impact on the environment has awakened new interest in the area of degradable polymers. The interest in environmental issues is growing and there are increasing demands to develop material which do not burden the environment significantly. Biodegradation is necessary for water-soluble or water-immiscible polymers because they eventually enter streams which can neither be recycled nor incinerated. It is important to consider the microbial degradation of natural and synthetic polymers in order to understand what is necessary for biodegradation and the mechanisms involved. This requires understanding of the interactions between materials and microorganisms and the biochemical changes involved. Widespread studies on the biodegradation of plastics have been carried out in order to overcome the environmental problems associated with synthetic plastic waste. This paper reviews the current research on the biodegradation of biodegradable and also the conventional synthetic plastics and also use of various techniques for the analysis of degradation in vitro.
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            Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities.

            Jefferson L Hopewell, Robert Dvorak, Edward Kosior (2009)
            Plastics are inexpensive, lightweight and durable materials, which can readily be moulded into a variety of products that find use in a wide range of applications. As a consequence, the production of plastics has increased markedly over the last 60 years. However, current levels of their usage and disposal generate several environmental problems. Around 4 per cent of world oil and gas production, a non-renewable resource, is used as feedstock for plastics and a further 3-4% is expended to provide energy for their manufacture. A major portion of plastic produced each year is used to make disposable items of packaging or other short-lived products that are discarded within a year of manufacture. These two observations alone indicate that our current use of plastics is not sustainable. In addition, because of the durability of the polymers involved, substantial quantities of discarded end-of-life plastics are accumulating as debris in landfills and in natural habitats worldwide. Recycling is one of the most important actions currently available to reduce these impacts and represents one of the most dynamic areas in the plastics industry today. Recycling provides opportunities to reduce oil usage, carbon dioxide emissions and the quantities of waste requiring disposal. Here, we briefly set recycling into context against other waste-reduction strategies, namely reduction in material use through downgauging or product reuse, the use of alternative biodegradable materials and energy recovery as fuel. While plastics have been recycled since the 1970s, the quantities that are recycled vary geographically, according to plastic type and application. Recycling of packaging materials has seen rapid expansion over the last decades in a number of countries. Advances in technologies and systems for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of recyclable plastics are creating new opportunities for recycling, and with the combined actions of the public, industry and governments it may be possible to divert the majority of plastic waste from landfills to recycling over the next decades.
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              Recycling and recovery routes of plastic solid waste (PSW): a review.

              S.M. Al-Salem, P Lettieri, J Baeyens (2009)
              Plastic solid waste (PSW) presents challenges and opportunities to societies regardless of their sustainability awareness and technological advances. In this paper, recent progress in the recycling and recovery of PSW is reviewed. A special emphasis is paid on waste generated from polyolefinic sources, which makes up a great percentage of our daily single-life cycle plastic products. The four routes of PSW treatment are detailed and discussed covering primary (re-extrusion), secondary (mechanical), tertiary (chemical) and quaternary (energy recovery) schemes and technologies. Primary recycling, which involves the re-introduction of clean scrap of single polymer to the extrusion cycle in order to produce products of the similar material, is commonly applied in the processing line itself but rarely applied among recyclers, as recycling materials rarely possess the required quality. The various waste products, consisting of either end-of-life or production (scrap) waste, are the feedstock of secondary techniques, thereby generally reduced in size to a more desirable shape and form, such as pellets, flakes or powders, depending on the source, shape and usability. Tertiary treatment schemes have contributed greatly to the recycling status of PSW in recent years. Advanced thermo-chemical treatment methods cover a wide range of technologies and produce either fuels or petrochemical feedstock. Nowadays, non-catalytic thermal cracking (thermolysis) is receiving renewed attention, due to the fact of added value on a crude oil barrel and its very valuable yielded products. But a fact remains that advanced thermo-chemical recycling of PSW (namely polyolefins) still lacks the proper design and kinetic background to target certain desired products and/or chemicals. Energy recovery was found to be an attainable solution to PSW in general and municipal solid waste (MSW) in particular. The amount of energy produced in kilns and reactors applied in this route is sufficiently investigated up to the point of operation, but not in terms of integration with either petrochemical or converting plants. Although primary and secondary recycling schemes are well established and widely applied, it is concluded that many of the PSW tertiary and quaternary treatment schemes appear to be robust and worthy of additional investigation.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Martin Koller: Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Bioengineering (Basel)
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Bioengineering (Basel)
                Journal ID (publisher-id): bioengineering
                Title: Bioengineering
                Publisher: MDPI
                ISSN (Electronic): 2306-5354
                Publication date (Electronic): 28 August 2017
                Publication date Collection: September 2017
                Volume: 4
                Issue: 3
                Electronic Location Identifier: 73
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Wolverhampton School of Biology, Chemistry and Forensic Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, UK; Guozhan.jiang@ 123456wlv.ac.uk (G.J.); D.Hill@ 123456wlv.ac.uk (D.H.); M.Kowalczuk@ 123456wlv.ac.uk (M.K.)
                [2 ]Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Polish Academy of Sciences, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland; Grazyna.Adamus@ 123456cmpw-pan.edu.pl (G.A.); ikwiecien@ 123456cmpw-pan.edu.pl (I.K.); mzieba@ 123456cmpw-pan.edu.pl (M.Z.); wsikorska@ 123456cmpw-pan.edu.pl (W.S.)
                [3 ]Recycling Technologies Ltd., South Marston Industrial Park, Swindon SN3 4WA, UK; Matt.Green@ 123456recyclingtechnologies.co.uk
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: B.Johnston@ 123456wlv.ac.uk (B.J.); I.Radecka@ 123456wlv.ac.uk (I.R.); Tel.: +44-1902-322-366 (B.J. & I.R.)
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6353-5913
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3257-8803
                Article
                Publisher ID: bioengineering-04-00073
                DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering4030073
                PMC ID: 5615319
                PubMed ID: 28952552
                SO-VID: 061afcba-354f-491a-ac89-62f0ff8a5b57
                Copyright © © 2017 by the authors.
                License:

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                Date received : 02 August 2017
                Date accepted : 24 August 2017
                Categories
                Subject: Article

                Keywords: polyhydroxyalkanoates,phas,non-oxidized pe wax,n-pew,cupriavidus necator h16
                Data availability:
                Keywords: polyhydroxyalkanoates, phas, non-oxidized pe wax, n-pew, cupriavidus necator h16

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