Enhancing Degradation of Low Density Polyethylene Films by Curvularia lunata SG1 Using Particle Swarm Optimization Strategy

Abstract

In the present study, artificial neural network (ANN) modelling coupled with particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was used to optimize the process variables for enhanced low density polyethylene (LDPE) degradation by Curvularia lunata SG1. In the non-linear ANN model, temperature, pH, contact time and agitation were used as input variables and polyethylene bio-degradation as the output variable. Further, on application of PSO to the ANN model, the optimum values of the process parameters were as follows: pH = 7.6, temperature = 37.97°C, agitation rate = 190.48 rpm and incubation time = 261.95 days. A comparison between the model results and experimental data gave a high correlation coefficient (R 2 ANN ¼ 0:999). Significant enhancement of LDPE bio-degradation using C. lunata SG1by about 48 % was achieved under optimum conditions. Thus, the novelty of the work lies in the application of combination of ANN-PSO as optimization strategy to enhance the bio-degradation of LDPE.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Potential of fungi isolated from the dumping sites mangrove rhizosphere soil to degrade polythene

“…Finally they concluded Aspergillus niger , A. fumigatues , and A. flavus mixed with PECDS and PEPDS leads to highest weight loss of the polythene compared to fadama soil mixed with inorganic fertilizer (NPK) and control. The possible reason for weight reduction in polythene in all the studies is due to breakdown of carbon backbone (enzymatic degradation) 65 and utilizing the resulting monomers and oligomers as a carbon source by the fungi 61,66 . Otake et al .…”

Fungal bioremediation of polyethylene: Challenges and perspectives

“…Comparing weight loss figures in the studies reviewed (Table S1 & Table S2) does, however, indicate increased LDPE biodegradation over HDPE, enhancement of biodegradation following a PT step (Balasubramanian et al, 2014;Sheik et al, 2015), and variation in biodegradative capacity within and between genera (Alsherehrei, 2017;Muhonja et al, 2018;Sáenz et al, 2019). In a small subset of studies, considerable (>40%) weight losses have been reported over 15-90 days (Mukherjee and Kundu, 2014;Raut et al, 2015;Alsherehrei, 2017;Paço et al, 2017).…”

“…The non-destructive method of Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) can be used to detect chemical changes in the composition of PE after abiotic/biotic treatment. Studies which perform a PT step report the introduction of C=O groups (Raut et al, 2015;Sheik et al, 2015;Awasthi et al, 2017), or likewise an increase in the carbonyl index (C.I. -the ratio of C=O peaks to CH 2 ; Balasubramanian et al, 2014).…”

“…Compositional changes to the semi-crystalline structure of both HDPE and LDPE (i.e. % Cry , mean crystallite size) have been detected using X-ray diffraction (XRD; Esmaeili et al, 2013;Raut et al, 2015), wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS; Manzur et al, 2004), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC; Volke-Sepúlveda et al, 2002;Sheik et al, 2015), FTIR (Devi et al, 2015), and Raman spectroscopy (Kang et al, 2019). An increase in crystallinity following fungal incubation is reported in several studies (Sheik et al, 2015;Devi et al, 2015;Kang et al, 2019), with the consumption of the more amenable amorphous region of the polymer presented as a possible explanation (Fig.…”

Biomedical Applications of Polyhydroxyalkanoates

“…In Nature, microbes have been bestowed with ability to withstand environmental stress. Under stress caused by high carbon: nitrogen (or potassium, oxygen, magnesium, phosphorus) ratio, microbes manipulate their metabolic activities in such a manner that rather than following the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the acetyl-CoA is diverted towards the synthesis of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), which can be categorized as completely degradable natural bioplastics [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”