Studies on Polyhydroxyalkanoate production from Bacillus species

Abstract

The synthetic or manmade plastics have played a predominant role in shaping our newlinehuman civilization. The plastic industry has rapidly developed catering to the myriad newlineapplications covering almost every sphere of human life, making them an indispensable newlinepart of our day to day life. Their widespread applications can be attributed to favorable newlinemechanical, thermal and chemical properties, such as high strength, lightness, rigidity or newlineflexibility, stability, durability, malleability, transparency or opacity, water resistance, newlineresistance to majority of water-borne microorganisms and most importantly cost newlineeffectiveness (usually lower than 1 kg-1) (Valentino et al., 2014; Bianca et al., 2016). It newlinehas been over a decade since the conventional materials viz. paper, jute, wood, metals newlinesuch as tin plates and aluminum, glass and ceramics have been replaced by synthetic newlineplastics in commercial sectors such as infrastructure, packaging, textile fibers, newlineautomotive, agriculture, electronics and medical appliances (North and Halden, 2013). newlineInspite of the manifold applications and benefits of these man-made plastics, they newlinehave been identified as hazardous polluting material, posing a big threat to nature. Rapid newlineincrease in the production and consumption, improper disposal, intrinsic qualities such as newlinedurability and non-biodegradability or very sluggish degradability of these commercial newlinepolymers has caught public attention on continuous gigantic environmental accumulation newlineof plastic waste and the resultant pollution. It is now commonly acknowledged that the newlineuse of long-lasting synthetic polymers for short-term purposes such as catering, newlinepackaging, hygiene and surgery is not entirely acceptable. Instead, the biobased and newlinebiodegradable plastics would be a potential environment friendly solution for meeting the newlineincrease in demand for plastics, which could also be obtained via natural renewable resources (Ojumu et al., 2004). newlineA continuous interaction amongst research on biobased and biodegradable newlinepolymers and their implementation has m