(Tests on Biodegradable marine pollutants; Decomposition rate of plastic materials)

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Bio 125






Methods








Moving forward


Acknowledgements
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(Tests on Biodegradable marine pollutants; Decomposition rate of plastic materials)
I. INTRODUCTION
a) Main questions motivating the research
i. What are some imperative methods of enhancing and managing
the biodegradability of polymers (plastics) found along with
marine ecology?
– The sustainability of the marine environment informs the main
focus or motivation of the research.
– Testing and implementing the results encourage students to build
on the knowledge and understand the application of long-life
solutions in advocacy and conservation of marine ecology.
– The investigation is a test procedure for the biodegradability of
biodegradable polymers by observing degradable physical
properties and the evolution of carbon VI oxide.
b) Other specific questions motivated the research.
i. What are the recommendable measures to monitor the
biological and physical degradation rates of polymers from
different categories?
ii. What are the effects of the density of polymers on the ability
and rate of degradation of polymers lying along with the
marine environment? (Above and under the sand).
iii.What are the changes in the volume of oxygen circulating and
consumption due to plastic items stationed on the sediments
and those that tend to sink to the seafloor?
iv. What are some of the cost-effective approaches to
implementing the test results?
I. Related literature
i. Tides and waves have significant effects in the degradation process due to
prolonged exposure to marine ecology (Lott et al. 2020).
– The process draws plastic materials along the shore and into the
sea.
ii.A study by Tosin et al. (2012) indicates that Mater-Bi, test materials
support the disintegration of polymers within nine months.
– Disintegration takes place under this condition in the case where
the plastic materials are buried under wet sand.
– This can only take place in tidal zones because s the simulation
was undertaken under similar conditions.
– The ability to weaken the physical properties without affecting the
tensile strength or breakability = -66. This translated to a period of
2 years to disintegrate.
– Prolonged exposure to seawater shows a biodegrade sustainability
of 236 days, equivalent to 69 %. The biodegradation relation to
paper is 88 %.
II. Projects main question
i. Are there approaches applicable at industrial levels to manufacture highly
biodegradable plastic materials?
III. Research hypothesis
i.What are the relationships between the rate of Carbon Vi Oxide evolution
and the quality of material plastic buried s in different marine ecologies?
IV. Research methods
i. Methods and Materials used
– The experiment was carried out in two levels.
– The first degradation of Mater-Bi will be carried out. (This will be a
combination of selected polyesters with a high degradation rate with
thermoplastic starch).
– The second step was running a pilot experiment with similar
materials.
– A 25 µm thick film was used in the case of the pilot experiment.
– Both experiments will be performed in aquaria.
– To determine the influence of sediment grain sizes on the
disintegrating material, biodegradable plastic films will be placed
on a varied amount of beach sand.
– A pilot experiment of sand mixed with sand will also be carried out.
V. Results
i. Mater- Bi being the test material, there was a slightly higher rate of
disintegration in both the sand and mud conditions, which took 298 and 153
days, respectively.
VI. Support of hypothesis
i. The results supported the hypothesis because using highly biodegradable
materials under similar or different ecological conditions reduced the days
taken to disintegrate the plastic material.
VII. Limitations of the study
i. There was limited access to complete gathering of the materials due to time
constraints and the high number of days to complete the experiments.
VIII. Way forward
i. All material should be gathered and conformed before the commencement of
experiments. This is because some materials become obsolete and irrelevant
for the investigation due to the long-time taken to generate possible results.
IX. Acknowledgment
i. Much appreciation to the school faculty and teaching fraternity for enabling
me to undertake the experiment
ii. Support from classmates and family are recognized and appreciated without
limit.
References
Lott, C., Eich, A., Unger, B., Makarow, D., Battagliarin, G., Schlegel, K., … & Weber, M.
(2020). Field and mesocosm methods to test biodegradable plastic film under marine
conditions. Plos one, 15(7), e0236579.
Tosin, M., Weber, M., Siotto, M., Lott, C., & Degli Innocenti, F. (2012). Laboratory test
methods to determine the degradation of plastics in marine environmental conditions.
Frontiers in Microbiology, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2012.00225