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Basics of PLA
Article contributed* by
Dr. Rainer Hagen,
Vice President and Product Manager,
Uhde Inventa-Fischer GmbH,
Berlin, Germany
Industrial composting
Mechanical recycling
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HDPE
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PLA
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fossil fuel
Chemical recycling
Introduction
Basics
Processing of PLA
A major advantage of PLA is the possibility to process
the polymer on common process equipment. Especially
the converters of polyolefins do not require a change
to other process equipment. They only need to change
the handling of granulate. It is very important to dry the
polymer before processing otherwise it will degrade.
Water and high temperatures (up to 240C) facilitate fast
degradation.
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PET
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Lactic Acid
Water to
Hydrolysis
Evaporation/Distillation
Water,
Lactic Acid
Oligomers
Pre-polymer
Formation of Cyclic Dimer
Crude Lactide
see Fig. 5
Lactide Purification
Highly Purified Lactide
Ring Opening Polymerisation
Dilactide
Polylactide
Properties of PLA
PLA is a crystal clear, transparent material when
amorphous that becomes the hazier the higher the
crystallinity. Crystallized material is opaque. When
producing lactide, meso-lactide is formed as a by-product.
It is difficult to separate the meso-lactide from the Llactide in the purification step. When polymerizing L-
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Basics
Tm
Tg
PLLA
PL / DLA
sc PLA
sbc PLA
160-180 C
55-65 C
55 C
60 C
55 C
220-230 C
185-195 C
Tm - melting temperature
Tg - glass transition temperature
Eb - elongation at break
n - tensile strength at break
Eb
Perspective
PLA combines all prerequisites of sustainability with
important properties of well established polymers.
Applications have already been found in many niches of
packaging and textile products. Within those niches fast
growth of consumption is expected to continue depending
on the availability of PLA polymer.
High research activity is dedicated to overcome typical
weaknesses of PLA low impact strength and low heat
distortion temperature and to develop tailor-made
PLA grades in order to serve special applications. These
activities will conquer new niches for PLA and will help to
increase PLA consumption at high velocity.
Other growth factors are the availability and prices of
crude oil, agricultural products and production plants and
technology.
Within the foreseeable future PLA will not become a
commodity polymer like PE, PP, PS this is considered to
be an advantage both for PLA producers and converters.
However, this could change in the long term.
www.thyssenkrupp.com
*: The article is based on a contribution to a book, submitted
for publication in T. Haas, M. Kircher, T. Khler, G. Wich, U.
Schrken, R. Hagen, White Biotechnology, in R. Hfer, Ed.,
Sustainable solutions for modern economies, The Royal
Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, forthcoming 2009, ISBN
9781847559050.
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