Effect of the elongation rate on the biodegradation of oriented polycaprolactone films by a pure strain of micro-organisms isolated from an industrial compost for house-hold refuse

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that unidirectional orientation of semi-crystalline polycaprolactone (PCL) films strongly affects their degradation behaviour in the presence of micro-organisms. For films of the same final thickness (300 μm), elongated using strain rates between 1.6 and 0.02 min–1, the rate of oxygen consumption is similar for all samples during the first 200 h of degradation. After that time the rate becomes strongly dependent on the elongation conditions. After 700 h of incubation, the weight loss is 99 and 25% for samples obtained with strain rates of 1.6 and 0.02 min–1 respectively. When compared with the non-orientated sample, the 1.6 min–1 sample degrades faster while the others degrade more slowly. The results are discussed in terms of models proposed in the literature for oriented films.