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Anaerobic digestion of commercial PLA and PBAT biodegradable plastic bags: Potential biogas production and 1H NMR and ATR-FTIR assessed biodegradation
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This study tested six commercial compostable plastic bags made from PLA and PBAT under anaerobic digestion conditions, finding that none degraded adequately at mesophilic temperatures — biodegradation occurred mainly in the PLA fraction — and none met the EN 13432 compostability standard, raising concerns about their real-world biodegradability claims.
Bioplastics aim to substitute conventional plastics in most applications, a critical one being the collection of organic wastes for composting or anaerobic degradation. The anaerobic biodegradability of six commercial bags composed of PBAT or PLA/PBAT blends and certified as compostable [1] was studied using 1H NMR and ATR-FTIR techniques. This study aims to elucidate if commercial bioplastic bags are biodegradable under conventional conditions found in anaerobic digestates. Results showed that all studied bags are hardly anaerobically biodegradable at mesophilic temperatures. The biogas yield resulting from the anaerobic digestion under laboratory conditions oscillated between 270.3 ± 45.5 L kgVS-1 for a trash bag composed of 26.64 ± 0.03%/73.36 ± 0.03% PLA/PBAT and 36.7 ± 25.0 L kgVS-1 for a bag composed of 21.24 ± 0.08%/78.76 ± 0.08% PLA/PBAT. The degree of biodegradation did not correlate with PLA/PBAT molar composition. However, 1H NMR characterization showed that the anaerobic biodegradation occurred mostly in the PLA fraction. No bioplastics biodegradation products were detected in the digestate fraction (<2 mm). Finally, none of the biodegraded bags comply with the EN 13432 standard.
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