Abstract

Biodegradable polybutylene succinate(PBS) is an environment friendly plastics for fisheries, because it can mitigate the ghost fishing problem caused by gill-net and trap fisheries. To evaluate photodegradability of PBS monofilament in comparison with polyamide(PA) and polyethylene(PE) monofilament, these 3 types of monofilaments were spun and exposed to ultraviolet light(UV) of weather-ometer for 900 hours, and then their modification, crystal structure, strength, and extensibility were analysed. PBS monofilament did not show any crack and maintained its crystal structure after 900 hour exposure to UV whereas PE monofilament began showing cracks and structure modification after 600 hour exposure. Under UV exposure, the strength and extensibility decreased more rapidly in PBS than in PA and PE. We estimate that gill nets made of PBS monofilament can endure for about 1 year. The breaking strength and elongation decreased linearly with the exposure time for the 3 types of monofilaments. The derived regression equations of the residual tenacity(RT, kg/$mm^2$) and the residual extensibility(RE, %) with the exposure time in year(Y) for each monofilament were; PBS : RT=48.598 - 8.6437Y($R^2=0.93$), RE=28.165 - 7.3233Y($R^2=0.98$), P A : RT=59.771 - 8.6437Y($R^2=0.98$), RE=32.198 - 5.2772Y($R^2=0.92$), P E : RT=60.898 - 5.6528Y($R^2=0.98$), RE=11.887 - 0.7188Y($R^2=0.98$).

Keywords

• Weatherability;
• Biodegradation;
• Polybutylene succinate;
• Monofilament