Recently, issues concerning the sustainable and harmless disposal of organic solid waste have generated interest in microbial biotechnologies aimed at converting waste materials into bioenergy and biomaterials, thus contributing to a reduction in economic dependence on fossil fuels. To valorize biomass, waste materials derived from agriculture, food processing factories, and municipal organic w...

The biodegradation of spent saline bottles, a low density polyethylene product (LDPE) by two selected Arthrobacter sp. under in vitro conditions is reported. Chemical and UV pretreatment play a vital role in enhancing the rate of biodegradation. Treated LDPE film exhibits a higher weight loss and density when compared to untreated films. Arthrobacter oxydans and Arthrobacter globiformis grew be...

Synthetic polymers are the cause of some major environmental impacts due to their low degradation rates. Polyurethanes (PU) are widely used synthetic polymers, and their growing use in industry has produced an increase in plastic waste. A commercial polyether-based thermoplastic PU with hydrolytic stability and fungus resistance was only attacked by an entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhiziumanisop...

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) can be found in any piece of electrical or electronic equipment: nearly all electronic items, including calculators and remote control units, contain large circuit boards; an increasing number of white goods, as washing machines contains circuit boards for example in electronic timers. PCBs contain metals, polymers, ceramics and are manufactured by sophisticated te...

Petroleum-based plastics have replaced many natural materials in their former applications. With their excellent properties, they have found widespread uses in almost every area of human life. However, the high recalcitrance of many synthetic plastics results in their long persistence in the environment, and the growing amount of plastic waste ending up in landfills and in the oceans has become...

An HPLC-UV/MS method has been developed to identify and quantify flame retardants in post-consumer plastics from waste of electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). Atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation spectra of 15 brominated and phosphate-based flame retardants were recorded and interpreted. The method was applied to detect flame retardant additives in polymer extracts obtained from pressu...

The engineering of large (thickness > 100 μm) tissues requires a microvascular network to supply nutrients and remove waste. To produce microvasculature in vitro, a scaffold is required to mechanically support and stimulate endothelial cell (EC) adhesion and growth. Scaffolds for ECs are currently produced by patterning polymers or other biomaterials into configurations which often possess isot...

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 degradation enzymes, and the cloning of ...

The polysaccharide maltodextrin (Mdx) can provide a low cost alternative to substitute the fractioned dextran for the use with polyethylene glycol (PEG) in aqueous two-phase polymer polymers systems. Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) partitioning has been used to recover and concentrate proteins from Shrimp Waste and offers many advantages along with biomass removal. In this work we have studied ...