Production facility of polilactic acid from lactic acid

Abstract

The worldwide plastics manufacturing has been estimated in 335 million tons in 2016 from which 60 million were produced in Europe. The plastics production has been, since the early nature of its productive activities in 1950, 8.3 billion tons. Spain is the fourth country in the European Union demanding plastics. The 50% of this plastics are finally disposed in landfills which must increase their capacity in order to accommodate the plastic wastes. In this context and with the intention of reducing wastes, the biopolymers were developed. The poly (lactic acid) is one of the best known and produced biodegradable polyesters due to its physical properties and cost which are optimal for several applications. [1] The present project proposes an introduction to this biopolymer production. The interaction between relatively new concepts and with social and industrial awareness are shown: technological progress, security and environmental protection. The poly (lactic acid) is produced from lactic acid, which was isolated in 1780 and introduced in the market in 1881. It was used only for medical application until 1997 when the Cargill Dow LLC Company pushed the market for the development of patents allowing the production of low cost PLA in volume production. So today, the PLA has multiple applications, some of which are intended to the textile field, the agricultural field, the biomedicine and the packaging.