Predicting and Quantifying the Biodegradability of biopolymers

预测和量化生物聚合物的生物降解性

• 批准号: 2596020
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2596020
• 关键词: Predicting; Quantifying; Biodegradability; biopolymers

This project aims to develop a new framework for predicting and quantifying the biodegradability of biopolymers with greater accuracy than current testing allows.There is increasing interest in the use of biopolymers such as chitin, cellulose and starch as alternatives to the synthetic polymers derived from fossil fuel as feedstock for global industrial and consumer products. It is envisaged that switching from fossil fuels to natural polymers, which are produced by many living organisms such as plants, can help to negate climate change impacts of chemical production.In recent years, the consumer chemical and products industry has increased its production of synthetic polymers, with at least 140 million tons now being produced every year (Siracusa, 2019). These polymers are used in everything from plastics to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals as well as personal hygiene products (Shah et al., 2008). With the human population still growing and set to reach 9.7 billion by 2100 (UN, 2019), demand for such products is likely to increase over the next few decades. It is becoming increasingly important therefore to assess the impact of these polymers on the natural environment, both during their production and after their disposal. At present most polymers in use are produced through the fractional distillation of crude oil, a process that is associated with the release of greenhouse gases thereby contributing to climate change. Additionally, some of these polymers may have adverse effects on wildlife when they enter the natural marine or terrestrial environments, damaging biodiversity as a result.It is hoped that chemical products produced using these biopolymers will be more biodegradable than the current synthetic ones and so will have little impact on the stability of ecosystems or biodiversity in general. However, little is known about how biodegradable these polymers are, and there remains some uncertainty as how to test their biodegradability. The many regulatory biodegradation tests that exist are more than 30 years old and were designed to assess small, low molecular weight chemicals and their applicability for assessing larger, more complex polymers has not adequately been assessed. In addition, there is a need to develop screening tools that allow for rapid assessment of the likelihood of polymer biodegradation in order to guide upstream innovation.Limitations to existing tests highlight a research gap in our understanding of how to measure biodegradation in polymers. The switch to biopolymers has great potential to ameliorate the twin issues of climate change and biodiversity loss however, it is crucial that their biodegradability can be predicted and quantified before they are disposed at scale into the environment.This will involve using bioinformatics tools to identify enzymatic pathways of interest for biodegrading polymers and the range of enzymes capable of catalysing these pathways. Microbial ecology techniques will then be used to determine the relative abundance of microbes that produce these enzymes in the relevant environments (i.e. where the polymers will end up after disposal). Adaptations will also be made to some existing biodegradation tests so these can be combined to form a cohesive framework that can reliably predict and quantify the biodegradability of polymers.

该项目旨在开发一个新的框架，以比当前测试允许的更高的精度来预测和量化生物聚合物的生物降解性。人们越来越关注使用甲壳素、纤维素和淀粉等生物聚合物作为源自化石燃料的合成聚合物的替代品作为全球工业和消费品的原料。据设想，从化石燃料转向由植物等许多生物体产生的天然聚合物，有助于消除化学品生产对气候变化的影响。近年来，消费化学品和产品行业增加了合成聚合物的生产聚合物，目前每年至少生产 1.4 亿吨（锡拉库扎，2019 年）。这些聚合物用于从塑料到化妆品、药品以及个人卫生产品的各种领域（Shah 等，2008）。随着人口仍在增长，预计到 2100 年将达到 97 亿（联合国，2019 年），未来几十年对此类产品的需求可能会增加。因此，评估这些聚合物在生产过程中和处置后对自然环境的影响变得越来越重要。目前，大多数使用的聚合物是通过原油分馏生产的，这一过程会释放温室气体，从而导致气候变化。此外，其中一些聚合物在进入天然海洋或陆地环境时可能会对野生动物产生不利影响，从而破坏生物多样性。人们希望使用这些生物聚合物生产的化学产品比目前的合成产品更具生物降解性，因此将一般来说，对生态系统或生物多样性的稳定性影响不大。然而，人们对这些聚合物的生物降解性知之甚少，并且如何测试其生物降解性仍然存在一些不确定性。现有的许多监管生物降解测试已有 30 多年的历史，旨在评估小型、低分子量化学品，但它们评估更大、更复杂聚合物的适用性尚未得到充分评估。此外，需要开发能够快速评估聚合物生物降解可能性的筛选工具，以指导上游创新。现有测试的局限性凸显了我们在如何测量聚合物生物降解方面的研究差距。转向生物聚合物在改善气候变化和生物多样性丧失的双重问题方面具有巨大潜力，然而，至关重要的是，在将其大规模处置到环境中之前，可以预测和量化其生物降解性。这将涉及使用生物信息学工具来识别酶生物降解聚合物的感兴趣途径以及能够催化这些途径的酶的范围。然后，微生物生态学技术将用于确定相关环境（即聚合物在处置后最终的去向）中产生这些酶的微生物的相对丰度。还将对一些现有的生物降解测试进行调整，以便将这些测试组合起来形成一个内聚框架，可以可靠地预测和量化聚合物的生物降解性。