Microbial degradation of polyesters: Polycaprolactone degraded by P. pullulans

Polycaprolactone is degraded by the mold P. pullulans in the presence of other nutrients. The weight loss from solid polymer films covered by a nutrient agar gel on which colonies are growing is used to establish comparative rates of degradation. There is substantial loss (16 mg/cm² surface area) from a whole polymer of low (2,000) molecular weight in three weeks at 30°C. A high (30,000) molecular weight whole polymer degrades about 0.15 as much in the same time period. A fraction in the same range (38,000) but with a narrower molecular weight distribution shows no significant loss. This indicates that whole polymers of high molecular weight may lose only a portion of their distribution by microbial degradation in short-term tests. This hypothesis is tested by making mixtures of high (61,000) molecular weight with low (2,000) molecular weight polymer. Degradation is directly proportional to the low molecular weight content in these short-term tests with a single species of mold. Other workers have shown previously that in long-term, soil-burial tests, even a high (40,000) molecular weight polycaprolactone is essentially completely degraded after one year.