Biopolymers and Bioplastics

Biobased Feedstocks and Sustainability

Mankind has been producing natural grown resources to make higher added value products. These resources can be grown and extracted from nature and therefore referred to as renewable resources, biobased feedstocks or biomass. These bio-based feedstocks include a large number of plants and trees, including some of the familiar kinds such as cotton, rubber, sugarcane, corn and rapeseed. The products extracted from these resources are utilized for manufacturing Bio-based commodities such as medicine, paper, textile, composites for construction, bioplastics, etc.  Corn stach was used as an effective source to produce bioplastics, several electronic parts are made from sugarcane cellulose. The industrial production of these materials is considerable in recent times. An estimated of 5 million tons of starch are currently used by the paper industry alone. In the EU, 2015, the starch consumption was 9.3 million tons, from which 38% was utilized for non-food applications, primarily paper making and chemical industries. Bioplastics and biochemical are beneficiaries as an alternative solution to the conventional counterparts made up of petroleum resources and its derivatives. Bioplastics are also reduce carbon foot prints by reducing the dependency on fossil fuels and at times improve product functionalities and performace in many cases. Bioplastics such as PLA are made from renewable, biobased carbohydrate-rich feed stocks, such as sugar beet, corn and sugarcane.

• Sustainable PHA production
• Hemicellulose in production of Furfural
• Lignin-Based Materials for polymerization
• Recombinant host microorganisms for monomer production
• Carbon-rich wastes as feedstocks for biodegradable polymer