Biopolymers and Bioplastics

New-to-the-world Biopolyesters

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Bio-based polyesters are of high interest by academic and industrial scientists and engineers. One member of this family is poly (lactic acid), PLA, is renewable, biocompatible and also biodegradable and is one of the most widely used biopolyesters. PLA is obtained either by ring opening polymerization (ROP) of lactide or by direct polycondensation of lactic acid. Another biopolyester with a wide range of interesting properties are Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). These families of biopolyesters are produced directly by microorganisms from various carbon sources. Efforts are underway to develop more efficient production organisms, use this biological pathway for the production of other biopolyesters such as PLA, develop more efficient downstream processing methods, produce PHAs from waste materials and much more. These are just two examples of a wide family of polymers that have tremendous potential to make important contributions to the introduction of biobased plastics.