Biodegradation of Polyethylene Using Bacillus Subtilis

By Palanichamy Vimala, Lea Mathew. 2016

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Polyethylene is among the major plastics being dumped in the environment. The study explores methods to enhance the rate of biodegradation of polyethylene using physical and biological means. Bacterial species –Bacillus subtilis – was tested for its potential in utilizing polyethylene as their sole carbon source. The microbial species produced surface active compounds (Biosurfactants) that enhance the degradation process. Pretreatment of polymer films with Ultraviolet radiation aids its accessibility as food for the microorganisms thus enabling a much faster rate of biodegradation. Inoculation of pretreated polyethylene films of thickness 18 μ with Bacillus subtilis with the addition of its biosurfactant (surfactin) proved to be most efficient with a weight loss percentage of 9.26% in 30 days

Subfields: Biomaterials, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b349b0655ae5d3ce10093a4ae943ba8a48a8193e

Citations in the corpus

• Microbial Degradation of UV-Pretreated Low-Density Polyethylene Films by Novel Polyethylene-Degrading Bacteria Isolated from Plastic-Dump Soil (2018, unknown): “In order to evaluate the extent of degradation due to UVirradiation, treated and untreated LDPE films were analyzed by FT-IR spectroscopy and the presence of extractable material produced during biodegradation was determined by gas chromatography both before and after inoculation with bacteria.”