The molecular level characterization of biodegradable polymers originated from polyethylene using non-oxygenated polyethylene wax as a carbon source for polyhydroxyalkanoate production
Authors
Johnston, BrianJiang, Guozhan
Hill, David
Adamus, Grazyna
Kwiecień, Iwona
Zięba, Magdalena
Sikorska, Wanda
Green, Matthew
Kowalczuk, Marek
Radecka, Iza
Issue Date
2017-08-28
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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.Citation
Johnston B., Jiang G., Hill D., Adamus G., Kwiecień I., Zięba M., Sikorska W., Green M., Kowalczuk M., Radecka I., (2017) 'The Molecular Level Characterization of Biodegradable Polymers Originated from Polyethylene Using Non-Oxygenated Polyethylene Wax as a Carbon Source for Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production', Bioengineering, 4 (3):73Publisher
MDPIJournal
BioengineeringAdditional Links
http://www.mdpi.com/2306-5354/4/3/73Type
Journal articleLanguage
enISSN
2306-5354Sponsors
This research was funded by the Research Investment Fund, University of Wolverhampton, Faculty of Science and Engineering, UK. This work was also partially supported under the EU 7FP BIOCLEAN Project, Contract No. 312100, “New biotechnological approaches for biodegrading and promoting the environmental biotransformation of synthetic polymeric materials”ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3390/bioengineering4030073
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