New Trend of Characterisation of Polymers Biostability under Aerobic and Anaerobic Conditions

The work focuses on potential employment of MicroOxymax O2/CO2/CH4 automatic analyzer (Columbus, U.S.A.) for assessing aerobic and anaerobic biodegradability (biostability) of composites. Convenience of the given analyzer was assessed in degradation of PVAL-based mixed films.The objective of the work was confronting results of these tests with results obtained through “classic” standard respiration procedures (measuring consumption of oxygen or production of CO2 for the aerobic conditions and measuring production of CO2 and CH4 for anaerobic conditions). Standard tests already earlier revealed that a “stepwise” degradation course takes place with mixed films when unadapted inoculum is employed, which corresponds to gradual breakdown of particular components in a sequence corresponding to their biological degradation. In similar tests with analyzer MicroOxymax O2/CO2/CH4 it was found that results of individual tests were in harmony, so that the analyzer, price disregarded, could prove to be a good alternative to existing standard tests.