Fully Automated System of Continual Testing of Aerobic Biodegradability in Aqueous or Soil Environment

Abstract

The aim of this work was to introduce a unique device – fully automated respirometer Micro-Oxymax (Columbus Instruments Corp., Ohio, USA) which can be used for testing aerobic biodegradability of plastics in aerobic aqueous or soil environment. The O₂ consumption and CO₂ production in gas phase of the test chambers are measured periodically in 30 parallel tests in our respirometer arrangement. The selected experimental conditions of the biodegradability tests were based on the prior research focused on reproducibility and repeatability of the measurements. The results of this study indicate that the respirometer application in aerobic biodegradability is very effective. It provides comparable results with other methods (acidimetric or GC determination of CO₂ production), is incomparably less laborious and shows a high testing capacity (up to 80 measuring chambers at a time).