ATP-based screening of polymer biodegradability via microbial activity tracking

Biodegradable polymers are increasingly pursued as sustainable alternatives to conventional plastics, yet evaluating their environmental degradability remains challenging. Conventional biodegradation assays based on CO₂ evolution or mass loss are time-consuming and poorly suited for high-throughput screening. Here we present a time-resolved method for assessing polymer biodegradability by monitoring microbial adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production as an indicator of metabolically active biomass. ATP dynamics correlate strongly with CO₂ evolution for starch (R² = 0.94), demonstrating that ATP dynamics reflect microbial activity associated with biodegradation. Distinct ATP profiles were observed across polymers with known degradation behavior, enabling classification into three microbial response patterns: rapid activation for readily biodegradable substrates (starch, cellulose), delayed activation consistent with surface-limited degradation (PCL, PBS, PBAT), and minimal activation under mesophilic aqueous conditions (PLA, LDPE). These results demonstrate that ATP tracking provides a rapid and scalable tool for screening polymer biodegradability and probing early microbial–polymer interactions, complementing conventional mineralization assays.