Researcher(s)
- Caroline Zu, Biochemistry, Purdue University
Faculty Mentor(s)
- Mark Blenner, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware
Abstract
The accumulation of plastic waste presents numerous global environmental challenges. Specifically, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) poses recycling difficulties and can take hundreds of years to naturally biodegrade in traditional ecosystems. Insects offer a faster approach to plastic degradation. The gut microbiome of yellow mealworms can rapidly consume and degrade plastics by breaking down the carbon components that make up plastic for sustenance. This project focuses on identifying plastic degrading microbes from the gut of the mealworm and characterizing their ability to grow from and break down LDPE. After maximizing insect plastic consumption, microbial communities extracted from the gut are enriched and isolated for sequencing. Microbes, both bacterial and fungal, are screened on plastic to determine if they can grow from plastic as their sole carbon source. Furthermore, a newly optimized media, devoid of yeast extract, has been developed for the screening of potential plastic degrading isolates in both liquid culture and on plates. As part of the screening process, over 80 pre-existing isolates have been assessed on the new media with LDPE powder, with varying amounts of growth. Additionally, isolates are dosed on LDPE film to evaluate their plastic degrading abilities, and several isolates have demonstrated the ability to form carbonyl bonds, signifying the presence of an aldehyde, as identified through FTIR and XPS. In the future, the increased isolation of fungal colonies from the gut microbial communities is planned, along with the investigation of plastic degradation abilities in the fungal species Aspergillus. Using microbes to degrade plastic, a large-scale upcycling process can be developed to produce higher-value materials and provide an economical solution to plastic waste accumulation.