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Screening of poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) PBAT co-polyesters hydrolyzing bacteria from soil

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Abstract

The use of poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) has increased widely but PBAT-degrading bacteria have rarely been studied. During this study, we used farm soil to isolate and identify PBAT-degrading bacteria. We then accessed the effect of growth factors on PBAT degradation as well as the lipase activity of PBAT-degrading bacteria. The serial dilution method was used to isolate the PBAT-degrading microbes from the farm soil of Xinjiang. Microbial colonies were spread and streaked many times to get pure colonies. Xin-A and Xin-B were gram-positive bacteria. Lipase production of these strains was studied using para nitrophenyl palmitate as a substrate which showed that both bacteria were lipase producing and the lipase production of Xin-B (14 U/mL) was superior to Xin-A (11.7 U/mL) degrading almost 13.7% PBAT in 14 days. The activity and degradation of both strains was superior than previously reported species. Among all the available methods, enzymatic hydrolysis is considered to be the best technique to treat the generated plastic waste and this is the most attractive and emerging technique discovered so far. These results provide technical support for the highly efficient degradation of PBAT by lipase in the environment.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Jia Hao and Ma Xiatao for help during analysis.

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  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710021, China

    Aqsa kanwal, Min Zhang & Faisal Sharaf

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  1. Aqsa kanwal
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  2. Min Zhang
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Ak and MZ analyze the data and prepared the draft of the manuscript while Faisal Sharaf revised and polished the manuscript. All the authors have approved the final draft of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Min Zhang.

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kanwal, A., Zhang, M. & Sharaf, F. Screening of poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) PBAT co-polyesters hydrolyzing bacteria from soil. Polym. Bull. 81, 2407–2428 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-023-04838-x

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