chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) (08/18/89)
[I tried posting a message to this effect before, but it got nuked.]
I was wondering if maybe plastics could be made biodegradable after
the fact by dissolving them in acetone or some other biodegradable solvent,
and then diluting the solution in minimal growth media for some microbe. The
questions that this hinges on are
1. What makes plastics non-biodegradable -- is it inherent
nonbiodegradability of the subunits, or is it the insoluble
solid (and thus inaccessible) form of those subunits?
2. What are the subunits of various commonly-used plastics,
and how would microorganisms handle these if they were
presented in an accessible form?
3. What kinds of biodegradable solvents are available that
can be used to dissolve commonly-used plastics? I assume
that acetone is biodegradable because some biological
processes produce it (and thus presumably ones exist to
metabolize it), but acetone doesn't dissolve all plastics.
| Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR)
Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu
Alt Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu