Influence of Bioplastics' Biodegradation on Soil Quality

konferenční sborník (ne článek)

angličtina

Over the past decade, the society has brought attention to microplastics. They are produced by various industries and spread across the environment. As they are no longer considered inert (with no further effect on plants and other living organisms) many researchers including us are constantly working to adress this situation. In this sense, bioplastics has been brought to a media spotlight. They are presented as an ecological alternative to solve generally plastic related problems, but what is often forgotten, their main advantage might also be their bottleneck. Majority of scientific articles, focusing on their presence in the environment are limited only on marine and fresh waters and therefore their behaviour in air and soil rmenais rather unclear. For that reason, a work mentioned in this contribution focuses on negative effects associated with prsence of microplastics (specifically poly-(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate bioplastics) in soils as their common receptor. We consider soil to be a recycling facility - carbon is circulated to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, nitrogen is made available as ammonium and nitrate, and the rest of the associated elements appear in forms required by higher plants. In this sense, during microbial decomposition of carbon-rich compounds, only part of the carbon is released, and the rest remain in the form of soil organic matter. This matter is available to all living organisms and is being constantly reused. Addition of any substrate (in our case a bioplastic) to such an environment will cause an imbalance in this system, which can seriously endanger soil quality and thus plants and living organisms. Therefore, it is essential to focus on their transport and transformation in the environment. To investigate physico-chemical changes in soil induced by the presence o bioplastic, we combined respiromentry, elemental analysis, thermogravimetry and enzymatic assays. Our results suggested a negative effect on soil organic matter and water retention in soil. A phenomenon called "priming effect was widely investigated as acceleration as well as retardation of soil organic matter decomposition took place. We registered different influence of selected concentrations of biopolymer on the soil system as well as an influence of soil properties on the course of degradation. Finally, increased enzymatic activities clearly suggested impact of biopolymer presence on the microbial community. Such findings let us conclude, that biopolymer addition leads to long-term impact on a range of soil ecosystem services.

soil organic matter; soil quality; respirometry; thermogravimetry; enzymatic assays; elemental analysis; bioplastics; PHB; degradation; carbon cycle; priming effect

PALUCHOVÁ, N.; KUČERÍK, J.

25. 11. 2021

Vysoké Učení Technické v Brně, Fakulta chemická

Purkynova 464/118, 612 00

978-80-214-6002-7

Studentská odborná konference CHEMIE JE ŽIVOT 2021

první

49

51

106

https://www.fch.vut.cz/vav/konference/sok/vystupy/sbornik-konference-2021-abstrakty-a5-pdf-p213391