ArticleEnvironmental science and ecotechnology2026
Accelerated polyethylene biodegradation in soil through carbon nanomaterial-primed rhizospheres.
Article in Environmental science and ecotechnology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Polyethylene accounts for the majority of terrestrial plastic waste, yet its chemical inertness resists natural decomposition in soil. Rhizoremediation offers a strategy that combines plant and microbe activity, but recalcitrant C-C backbones create a kinetic bottleneck that historically restricts plastic mass loss to under 3%. Here we show that engineered carbon nanomaterials prime the plant rhizosphere to breach this kinetic barrier, driving accelerated polyethylene biodegradation in soil. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes accelerated surface-layer breakdown, achieving 12.1% mass loss within 90 days, compared to less than 0.1% in abiotic controls and 0.6% in unamended soil. This nanomaterial-amended degradation was accompanied by a 97% reduction in tensile modulus, from 782.8 to 19.6 MPa, and surface oxidation, with the O 1 s/C 1s ratio increasing from 0.17 to 0.49. In deeper soil, graphene oxide sustains long-term degradation (5.8%) tightly synchronized with root penetration. Mechanistically, carbon nano-interfaces recruit pioneer degraders (
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.