Source Year: 2006

Some natural (latex gloves and rubber bands) and synthetic (polyisoprene and nitrile) rubber smaples were subjected to bacterial and fungal degradation. When polyisoprene rubber was treated with 6 microbial isolates, the degradation ranged from 3 to 72;. The best results were obtained by strains DRI and DR4, with which the degradation in liquid salt medium reached 40 and 72;, respectively. These isolates were identified as Xanthomonas fragariae and Aspergillus fumigatus, respectively. In solid agar medium, the latex glove rubber showed complete degradation by DRI, while other rubber samples did not show any degradation by other isolates. These results indicated that microbial rubber degradation is promising and could reach 100;provided that suitable organism and conditions are used. To determine the degradation mechanism and the possibility of recycling the products, the degradation products were seperated and analysed by GC-MS. The major products resulted from double bond oxidation to give CH3-CO-CH2-[CH2-CH=C(CH3)-CH2-CH2-CH=C(CH3)-CH2]n-CH2-CHO.