Assessment of biodegradation of PLA/PCL and PLA/PEG biopolymers under aerobic and anaerobic conditions

This paper concentrates on the biodegradation capability of poly (lactic acid) blends with poly(caprolactone) and polyethylene glycol in the solid state and in the liquid phase under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. to this end,blends were processed on a twin-screw extruder with a film die and to determine the efficiency of the biodegradation of polymers,quantitative (mass variations,bod) and qualitative (dsc and sem) analyses were made. all biopolymers were degraded in the liquid phase under aerobic conditions and the addition of 5 or 10 wt% peg mainly increased their biodegradability with values of bod15 about 38 and 52 mg of o2/mg co and a weight loss of 0.65 and 1.23 wt%,respectively. similarly,in anaerobic conditions,biopolymers with 10 wt% peg displayed the best outcome in terms of biodegradability and the weight loss was around 0.68 wt%. dsc and sem analyses,on the other hand,showed that pla/peg blends were more biodegraded by microorganisms than pla and pla/pcl blends. otherwise,various fungi grown on solid state and using different biopolymers (for their growth) as sole carbon source,were isolated and screened. observation under uv light,on the other hand,demonstrated the presence of lipase activity.