| Autor: |
Andreas Eich, Miriam Weber, Christian Lott |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2021 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
PeerJ, Vol 9, p e11981 (2021) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
2167-8359 |
| DOI: |
10.7717/peerj.11981 |
| Popis: |
The seafloor is considered the major sink for plastic debris in the world’s oceans. Biodegradable polymers are available on the market as a substitute for conventional plastic and could potentially end up in the same environment. To gain more insight into the effects of different sediments on the degradation rate of biodegradable plastic we performed two iterative seawater tank experiments. First, to test the effect of sediment grain size, film of Mater-Bi HF03V, a blend of thermoplastic starch and biodegradable polyesters, was placed on the surface of mud as well as on four different grain size fractions of beach sand. Disintegration half-life was shortest on mud (139 days) and increased with the grain size of the beach sediment fractions (63–250 µm: 296 days; 250–500 µm: 310 days; 500–1,000 µm: 438 days; >1,000 µm: 428 days). We assume that the higher surface-to-volume ratio in fine sediment compared to coarse sediment led to a higher bacterial abundance and thus to faster disintegration rates. In a follow-up experiment, the |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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