Abstract
The environmental issues caused by the impacts of synthetic plastics use and derived wastes are arising the attention to bio-based plastics, natural polymers produced from renewable resources, including agricultural, industrial, and domestic wastes. Bio-based plastics represent a potential alternative to petroleum-based materials, due to the insufficient availability of fossil resources in the future and the affordable low cost of renewable ones that might be consumed for the biopolymer synthesis. Among the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), the polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biopolymer has been synthesized and characterized with great interest due to its wide range of industrial applications. Currently, a wide number of bacterial species from soil, activated sludge, wastewater, industrial wastes, and compost have been identified as PHB producers. This work has the purpose of isolating and characterizing PHB-producing bacteria from the agricultural soil samples of Argania spinosa in the south region of Morocco where the plant species is endemic and preserved. During this research, four heat-resistant bacterial strains have been isolated. Among them, two species have been identified as endospore forming bacteria following the Schaffer-Fulton staining method with Malachite green and the Methylene blue method. Black intracellular granules have been appreciated in microscopy at 100× for both strains after staining with Sudan black B. The morphological and biochemical analyses of the isolates, including sugar fermentation and antibiotic susceptibility tests, preliminarily identified the strains 1B and 2D1 belonging to the genus Serratia and Proteus, respectively.
Highlights
The problems caused by the persistent production and use of synthetic plastics, the accumulation of their wastes, and impossibility to be decomposed have become one of the major worldwide environmental issues [1]
The use of petrochemical plastics, produced starting from a non-renewable resource, has been discouraged since they are not biodegradable, toxic when accumulated into landfills and incinerated, and they are potentially harmful for the environment when entering aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems
We investigate the potential presence of microorganisms able to synthesize the biopolymer
Summary
The problems caused by the persistent production and use of synthetic plastics, the accumulation of their wastes, and impossibility to be decomposed have become one of the major worldwide environmental issues [1]. More attention has been addressed to pursue sustainability and to opt to eco-friendly materials which preserve the environment and its biodiversity. On this perspective, the use of petrochemical plastics, produced starting from a non-renewable resource, has been discouraged since they are not biodegradable, toxic when accumulated into landfills and incinerated, and they are potentially harmful for the environment when entering aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
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