Volume 140, Issue 6 e53447
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Degradation of wheat straw/polylactic acid composites with and without sodium alginate in natural soil and the effects on soil microorganisms

Xicun Chai

Xicun Chai

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Contribution: Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (equal), Software (lead), Validation (equal), Writing - original draft (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal)

Search for more papers by this author
Chunxia He

Corresponding Author

Chunxia He

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Correspondence

Chunxia He and Yutao Liu, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China.

Email: [email protected] and

[email protected]

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
Yutao Liu

Corresponding Author

Yutao Liu

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Correspondence

Chunxia He and Yutao Liu, College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210031, China.

Email: [email protected] and

[email protected]

Contribution: Formal analysis (lead), Writing - review & editing (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
Evode Niyitanga

Evode Niyitanga

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (lead)

Search for more papers by this author
Luyang Wang

Luyang Wang

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (equal)

Search for more papers by this author
Weixing Zhang

Weixing Zhang

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (equal)

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 02 December 2022
Citations: 2

Funding information: Postgraduate Research&Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, Grant/Award Number: KYCX21_0574; Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program, Grant/Award Number: BE2019326; Regional Cooperative Innovation in Autonomous Region, Grant/Award Number: 2019E0241

Abstract

In order to improve the degradability of polylactic acid (PLA) composites and screen PLA degradation microorganisms. Sodium alginate was added into the wheat straw/PLA composites, and both composites (with/without sodium alginate) were buried in natural soil for 100 consecutive days subsequently. Weight loss and characterization of the PLA composites, carbon and nitrogen content in soil and microbial community composition were detected after degradation, with the result that the degradability of the PLA composites was greatly improved after the addition of sodium alginate. The weight loss of PLA composites with sodium alginate was 8.5%, which was 1.81 times that of PLA composites without sodium alginate. Sodium alginate and/or wheat straw in the PLA composites took the lead in the beginning course of the degradation. The added sodium alginate serves the purpose of making it easier to degrade the crystallization zone of the PLA composites. Bionectriaceae in the soil shoots up in the number after degradation, signifying its potential to be part of the microorganism family serving to degrade PLA composites. The results would help reveal the degradation mechanism of PLA composites and provide support for the screening of PLA composites degradation microorganisms.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.