Expanding Toolbox for Assessing Polymer Biodegradation

This project investigates the development of analytical tools to support the environmental assessment of novel polysaccharide-based polymers, which are increasingly viewed as sustainable alternatives to conventional synthetic materials. As interest in biodegradable polymers derived from renewable sources continues to grow, the need for reliable and robust methods to evaluate their environmental fate becomes increasingly important.
Standardised biodegradation tests have traditionally been designed for low molecular weight, soluble compounds and are often not well suited to the structural complexity of high molecular weight biopolymers. These limitations pose significant challenges when assessing the degradation of such materials under environmentally relevant conditions. In response, this project aims to develop and refine analytical approaches that are more sensitive, reproducible, and adaptable to a wider variety of polymer structures.
The research focuses on optimising a suite of analytical workflows to examine the degradation behaviour of both chemically modified and unmodified water-soluble polysaccharides. These workflows integrate specific enzymatic degradation protocols with a range of analytical techniques designed to detect and characterise resulting degradation products. Initial efforts have centred on method development for polymers such as pullulan, dextran, and carboxymethyl cellulose, with future work intended to expand to additional materials.
By enhancing the analytical tools available for studying polymer degradation, this research contributes to more accurate environmental risk assessments of emerging biodegradable materials. The broader objective is to support the design and evaluation of polymers that align with the principles of sustainability and the circular economy, ensuring that new materials are truly "benign by design" in terms of both environmental and human health impacts.