Introduction of environmentally degradable parameters to evaluate the biodegradability of biodegradable polymers

Abstract

Environmentally Degradable Parameter (EdK) is of importance in the describing of biodegradability of environmentally biodegradable polymers (BDPs). In this study, a concept EdK was introduced. A test procedure of using the ISO 14852 method and detecting the evolved carbon dioxide as an analytical parameter was developed, and the calculated EdK was used as an indicator for the ultimate biodegradability of materials. Starch and polyethylene used as reference materials were defined as the EdK values of 100 and 0, respectively. Natural soil samples were inoculated into bioreactors, followed by determining the rates of biodegradation of the reference materials and 15 commercial BDPs over a 2-week test period. Finally, a formula was deduced to calculate the value of EdK for each material. The EdK values of the tested materials have a positive correlation to their biodegradation rates in the simulated soil environment, and they indicated the relative biodegradation rate of each material among all the tested materials. Therefore, the EdK was shown to be a reliable indicator for quantitatively evaluating the potential biodegradability of BDPs in the natural environment. © 2012 Guo et al.