BIODEGRADATION OF SYNTHETIC RUBBER AND POLYMERS OF NATURAL RUBBER

Abstract

Rubber is being used throughout the world in huge quantities since 218` century. It is considered to be an economically important polymer produced by plants. Alternatives to natural rubber can be synthesized from petroleum products, but the properties of synthetic rubber are inferior to those of natural rubber for many applications. In this present work, an experiment on biodegradation of natural and synthetically made rubber have been performed using Aspergillus niger MTCC 4285, Pseudomonas stutzari MTCC 107, Azospirillium Brasiliense MTCC 4034,. and Azotobacter chroococcum MTCC 446. Natural rubber strip has been prepared for the degradation studies. Polymers of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol have also been prepared by blending the natural rubber latex with polymers respectively. Aspergillus niger MTCC 4285 has been used for the microbial treatment of polymers ethylene glycol and propylene glycol. Various analyses like Scanning Electron Microscope, Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis, Thermal Gravimetric analysis, weight reduction analysis have been performed for the characterization of the sample and to determine the degradation level. Analysis by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) clearly demonstrated the enhanced colonization efficiency of these microbial strains towards the polymer samples. Presence of various functional' groups has been found by performing Fourier Transform Infrared analysis. The presencefabsence of ketene and aldehyde functional groups'was the products of biodegradation of rubber sample in the culture. The results obtained ' after keeping the sample in incubator were quite interesting maintained at a pH of 5.6, 30° C and 150 rpm in orbital shaker. Aspergillus Niger showed the better susceptibility towards rubber degradation than other strains. Thermal analysis also been performed for the measurement of physical and chemical properties of materials as a function of temperature: