Biodegradação de poliestireno expandido utilizando bactérias do trato intestinal de larvas de Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus, 1758 (coleoptera: tenebrionidae)

Abstract

One of the main environmental challenges that can be observed today is to reduce the amount of plastics improperly disposed on our planet, in general, due to their chemical properties, take a long time to degrade, and are damaging diverse marine and terrestrial ecosystems. One of the main plastics used in several industries is Expanded Polystyrene, popularly known as Isopor®, the purpose of this work was to analyze the biodegradation of this polymer from bacteria found in the intestinal tract of insect T. molitor, using a methodology of weighing the material before and after biodegradation, 3 of the bacteria extracted from the intestine of the insect larvae were studied, but only 2 with the potential for biodegradation, the percentage of biodegradation was 1,20% for the bacteria found identified as light yellow and for the bacteria found identified as dark yellow of biodegradation was 1,48%.