Assessing the Biodegradability of Polyacrylates Based on Radical Copolymerization

Currently our world heavily relies on plastic for various purposes due to its durability and versatility. These positive attributes come with serious drawbacks such as polluting our oceans and contaminating our soil. This necessitates the need for current polymer designs to be replaced with a more sustainable option. Through recent advancements in polymer design, a novel polymer could be synthesized with a higher biodegradability rate. With this comes the need to assess the biodegradability of said polymer through the assessment of compost respiration as well as 16S sequencing. We aim to determine the biodegradation rate of several novel polymers as well as determine whether they prompt taxa shifts in the microbial communities present in the samples of compost. In a previous experiment, we tested the biodegradability of cellulose compared to unamended compost in order to establish a basis for future experiments. The collected data will then be compared to the biodegradability of the novel polymers in the next part of the project. These experiments will provide valuable insight for the future design of biodegradable polymers with the hopes of contributing to the effort of cleaning up the biosphere.

Faculty Mentor: Michelle O'Malley

Project Mentor: Colleen Ahern