November 1, 2021 Journal article Open Access

Pablo Ferrero; Olivia A. Attallah; Miguel Ángel Valera; Ivana Aleksic; Muhammad Azeem; Jasmina Nikodinovic-Runic; Margaret Brennan Fournet

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{
  "description": "<p>An energy efficient high throughput pre-treatment of low density polyethylene (LDPE) using a fast reactive extrusion (REX) assisted oxidation technique followed by bacterial attachment as an indicator for bio-amenability was studied. Silicon dioxide (SiO<sub>2</sub>) was selected as a model oxidizing and catalytic reagent with the REX process demonstrated to be effective both in the presence and absence of the catalyst. Optimized 5-minute duration pretreatment conditions were determined using Box-Behnken design (BBD) with respect to screws speed, operating temperature, and concentration of SiO<sub>2</sub>. The crystallinity index, carbonyl index and weight loss (%) of LDPE were used as the studied responses for BDD. FTIR and DSC spectra of the residual LDPE obtained after pretreatment with the REX assisted oxidation technique showed a significant increase in residual LDPE carbonyl index from 0 to 1.04 and a decrease of LDPE crystallinity index from 29% to 18%. Up to 5-fold molecular weight reductions were also demonstrated using GPC. Optimum LDPE pretreatment with a duration of 5 minutes was obtained at low screw speed (50 rpm), operating temperature of 380-390\u2070C and variable concentration of SiO<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;(0 and 2% (w/w)) indicating that effective pretreatment can occur under noncatalytic and catalysed conditions. Biofilms were successfully formed on pretreated LDPE samples after 14 days of incubation.</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, the technique proposed in this study is expected to provide a high throughput approach for pretreatment of pervasive recalcitrant PE based plastics to reduce their bio inertness.</p>", 
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode", 
  "creator": [
    {
      "affiliation": "AIMPLAS", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Pablo Ferrero"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "Athlone Institute of Technology", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Olivia A. Attallah"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "AIMPLAS", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Miguel \u00c1ngel Valera"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "University of Belgrade: Univerzitet u Beogradu", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Ivana Aleksic"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "Athlone Institute of Technology", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Muhammad Azeem"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "University of Belgrade: Univerzitet u Beogradu", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Jasmina Nikodinovic-Runic"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "Athlone Institute of Technology", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Margaret Brennan Fournet"
    }
  ], 
  "headline": "Rendering bio-inert low-density polyethylene amenable for biodegradation via fast high throughput reactive extrusion assisted oxidation", 
  "image": "https://zenodo.org/static/img/logos/zenodo-gradient-round.svg", 
  "datePublished": "2021-11-01", 
  "url": "https://zenodo.org/record/6259017", 
  "@context": "https://schema.org/", 
  "identifier": "https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1016043/v1", 
  "@id": "https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1016043/v1", 
  "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", 
  "name": "Rendering bio-inert low-density polyethylene amenable for biodegradation via fast high throughput reactive extrusion assisted oxidation"
}