biodegradation of polymers生物降解材料.pdfVIP

Indian Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4, April 2005, pp 186-193 Biodegradation of polymers 1 2 Premraj R and Mukesh Doble * 1Centre for Biotechnology, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, India 2Departmemt of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai 600 036, India Received 9 January 2004; revised 14 May 2004; accepted 25 May 2004 Exhaustive studies on the degradation of plastics have been carried out in order to overcome the environmental problems associated with synthetic plastic waste. Recent work has included studies of the distribution of synthetic polymer-degrading microorganisms in the environment, the isolation of new microorganisms for biodegradation, the discovery of new degra- dation enzymes, and the cloning of genes for synthetic polymer-degrading enzymes. Under ambient conditions, polymers are known to undergo degradation, which results in the deterioration of polymer properties, characterized by change in its molecular weight and other physical properties. In this paper mainly the biodegradation of synthetic polymers such as polyethers, polyesters, polycaprolactones, polylactides, polylactic acid, polyurethane, PVA, nylon, polycarbonate, polyimide, polyacrylamide, polyamide, PTFE and ABS have been reviewed. Pseudomonas species degrade polyethers, polyesters, PVA, polyimides and PUR effectively. No microorganism has been found to degrade polyethylene without additives such as starch. None of the biodegradable techniques has become mature enough to become a tec