Not only can corn be eaten, but it can also be used as a material for biodegradable PLA stics

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s total grain output in 2016 was 616 million tons, of which corn accounted for 220 million tons! In people’s minds, corn is mainly used for food, feed and oil extraction. However, there is another important use of corn that is little known, and that is to make a biodegradable PLA stic, polylactic acid, which is “transformed” from food to industrial products. Polylactic acid ( PLA ), referred to as PLA , also known as polylactide. It is a polymer material produced by using starch-rich crops such as corn, wheat, and cassava as raw materials, through modern biotechnology to synthesize lactic acid, and then through a special polymerization process. It belongs to thermo PLA stic linear aliphatic polyester. Generally speaking, corn PLA stic is polylactic acid made from corn, and corn fiber is polylactic acid fiber made from corn. Polylactic acid: Polylactic acid is a kind of biodegradable PLA stic, others include polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), polysuccinate (PBS), polycaprolactone (PCL), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), carbon dioxide polymer etc. However, polylactic acid is the first large-scale industrialized bio-based and biodegradable PLA stic, which has broad development potential. Polylactic acid production is mainly concentrated in countries such as the United States, China, Germany and Japan. China’s polylactic acid industry started relatively late, but it is developing very rapidly. There will be a major expansion soon. According to the forecast of an international consulting agency, the future global polylactic acid market will grow at an average annual compound growth rate of 18%. It is estimated that by 2020, the global demand for polylactic acid will reach more than one million tons, and the market scale will form an industry worth 100 billion yuan. With the increasing consumption of petroleum resources and the deepening harm to the environment caused by “white pollution” caused by traditional PLA stics, polylactic acid, which is characterized by “green environmental protection”, is ushering in an excellent opportunity for development. It is foreseeable that more and more polylactic acid products will enter our daily life in the future, helping the sustainable development of the earth and benefiting future generations.