Novel technology for the manufacture of second generation biopolymers

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Polylactic acid (PLA) is the most successful synthetic bioplastic to date, yet marketpenetration is hindered by its high cost and relatively poor performance in comparison topolymers derived from petrochemicals. Plaxica is developing a low cost route to secondgeneration PLA products with the necessary physical properties to allow them to becompetitive with existing commodity polymers.This project will focus on the production of prototype materials composed of secondgeneration PLA using an innovative manufacturing approach, generating samples to confirm the physical properties of the biopolymer, and to provide test material for work further down the supply chain, including convertors and compounders, processing machinery manufacturers and end users.The project is innovative in a number of ways, especially in the industrial scale application of the PLA manufacturing technique. It is expected that this will make a significant contribution to the necessary step change in the cost of next generation PLAs for them to become the next major family of new polymers.