Basics

Basics of PLA
Article contributed* by
Dr. Rainer Hagen,
Vice President and Product Manager,
Uhde Inventa-Fischer GmbH,
Berlin, Germany

Industrial composting

Most attractive method of disposal based on public acceptance

No recovery of material and energy

Mechanical recycling

Loss of product properties cannot be recovered

Downcycling

Burning (energy recycling)

Competition between human food, industrial lactic acid

and PLA production is not to be expected: For example,
using PLA as substitute for 5% of the German packaging
plastics consumption requires only 0.5% (sugar beet)
to 1.25% (wheat) of the agricultural area available. At
the same time, approximately 30% of the available area
lies fallow mainly for economic reasons. Research is in
progress on processes and micro-organisms that produce
lactic acid from cellulose coming from agricultural
residues such as maize stalks or straw.

Figure 1: Methods of PLA Recycling

fossil raw material

Total Fossil Energy [GJ/ t plastic]

140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

PA 6

HDPE

PET

PLA

Source: M. Patel, R. Narayan, in Natural Fibers, Biopolymers and Biocomposites, A.

Mohanty, M. Misra, L. Drzal, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005, Boca Raton.

Figure 2: Consumption of Fossil Resources by PLA vs.

Polymers from Fossil Feedstock - cradle to gate

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At temperatures below its glass transition point (e.g.

55C, depending on comonomer content) PLA is as stable
as PET or PBT. Only in an industrial composting facility,
the high temperature (60C) and humidity required for the
hydrolysis are achieved. After hydrolysis, PLA is biologically
degradable by common micro-organisms. Lactic acid, the
monomer building block of PLA can frequently be found
in plants and animals as a by-product or intermediate
product of metabolism. Lactic acid is non-toxic.

Lactic acid can be industrially produced from a number

of starch or sugar containing agricultural products.

Back into polymerisation

Collecting and sorting to be solved yet

fossil fuel

Polylactide or Polylactic Acid (PLA) is a synthetic, aliphatic

polyester from lactic acid. For industrial applications, such
as fibres, films and bottles, the chain length n should be
between 700 and 1400. This is significantly higher than
with partially aromatic polyesters like PET and PBT where
n is between 100 and 200. Therefore, the requirements on
both raw material purity and technical effort are much
higher.

Non-depleting properties of PLA

Recovers green energy

Chemical recycling

Introduction

Several recycling methods can be applied to waste PLA

(Fig. 1). Composting allows only moderate benefits. In
future, sorting, purification of PLA waste and re-feeding
into the polymerisation plant seems to be the most
attractive way of recovery.
PLA like other biopolymers is often criticised for the
need of process energy from fossil resources. Even if this
is the case at present, 1 kg of PLA represents less energy
equivalents than 1 kg of polymers from petrochemical

Basics

feedstock (Fig. 2). Consequently, PLA producers can also

reap financial benefits by trading CO2 emission certificates
(Fig. 3).

Process Routes to PLA

Several Process Routes have been developed or are
practised on industrial scale: Ring Opening Polymerisation
(ROP), Direct Polycondensation in high boiling solvents
(DP S), and Direct Polymerisation in bulk followed by chain
extension with reactive additives.
ROP is the route which delivers by far the highest
proportion of PLA chips available on the market. The
other routes produce only minor amounts or did not get
past the pilot scale. Figure 4 depicts the steps of a ROP
process, starting from lactic acid. In the first part lactide
is formed, which after fine purification is converted by
ROP to PLA.

Processing of PLA
A major advantage of PLA is the possibility to process
the polymer on common process equipment. Especially
the converters of polyolefins do not require a change
to other process equipment. They only need to change
the handling of granulate. It is very important to dry the
polymer before processing otherwise it will degrade.
Water and high temperatures (up to 240C) facilitate fast
degradation.

7
6

[kg CO2 eq/kg]

If process energy is supplied by biomass, e.g. biogas,

the fossil energy required for 1 kg PLA can be cut by half,
thus duplicating the benefits from trading CO2 emission
certificates. Additionally, significant potential exists
for saving process energy by improving lactic acid and
polymerisation technologies.

5
4
3
2
1
0

PA 6

HDPE

PET

PLA

Source: M. Patel, R.N arayan, in Natural Fibers, Biopolymers and Biocomposites, A.

Mohanty , M. Misra , L. Drzal, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005, Boca Raton.

Figure 3: CO2 Emissions by PLA vs. polymers from fossil

feedstock - cradle to gate

Lactic Acid
Water to
Hydrolysis

Evaporation/Distillation
Water,
Lactic Acid

Concentrated Lactic Acid

Pre-condensation
Purge

Oligomers

Pre-polymer
Formation of Cyclic Dimer
Crude Lactide

see Fig. 5

Lactide Purification
Highly Purified Lactide
Ring Opening Polymerisation

Dilactide

Polylactide with Monomer

Demonomerisation/Stabilisation

PLA is a polymer which can be processed by:

injection moulding
sheet extrusion
extrusion blow moulding
thermoforming

Polylactide

Figure 4: Steps of a PLA Process with Ring

Opening Polymerisation

stretch blow moulding

injection stretch blow moulding
fibre spinning
non woven spinning, spun bonding

Properties of PLA
PLA is a crystal clear, transparent material when
amorphous that becomes the hazier the higher the
crystallinity. Crystallized material is opaque. When
producing lactide, meso-lactide is formed as a by-product.
It is difficult to separate the meso-lactide from the Llactide in the purification step. When polymerizing L-

Figure 5: Ring opening Polymerisation

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Basics

Table 1: Properties of PLA Types

Type

Tm

Tg

PLLA
PL / DLA
sc PLA
sbc PLA

160-180 C

55-65 C
55 C
60 C
55 C

45-55 Mpa 3-5 %

50-200 %
3-5 %
5-10 %

220-230 C
185-195 C

Tm - melting temperature
Tg - glass transition temperature
Eb - elongation at break
n - tensile strength at break

Eb

lactide with small contents of meso-lactide a co-polymer

is formed. Increasing meso-lactide leads to decreasing
crystallinity. With more than 10-15% meso-lactide the
polymer is amorphous.
By varying the amount of meso-lactide the properties of
the polymer can be adjusted for specific applications.
One of the reasons for the limited consumption of PLA
up to now is the low thermal resistance. The Tg (glass
transition temperature) is about 55C depending on
comonomer content to a small extent (Table 1).
Methods of improving thermal resistance are to prepare
a stereo complex (sc PLA) or a stereo-block copolymer
(sbc PLA). Melting point and heat distortion temperature
(HDT) will increase significantly.
Improving the thermal properties can extend the
applications of PLA considerably in the future.
There are also various additives that improve the
properties of PLA with respect to impact strength, melt
viscosity, HDT, crystallinity etc.

Perspective
PLA combines all prerequisites of sustainability with
important properties of well established polymers.
Applications have already been found in many niches of
packaging and textile products. Within those niches fast
growth of consumption is expected to continue depending
on the availability of PLA polymer.
High research activity is dedicated to overcome typical
weaknesses of PLA low impact strength and low heat
distortion temperature and to develop tailor-made
PLA grades in order to serve special applications. These
activities will conquer new niches for PLA and will help to
increase PLA consumption at high velocity.
Other growth factors are the availability and prices of
crude oil, agricultural products and production plants and
technology.
Within the foreseeable future PLA will not become a
commodity polymer like PE, PP, PS this is considered to
be an advantage both for PLA producers and converters.
However, this could change in the long term.
www.thyssenkrupp.com
*: The article is based on a contribution to a book, submitted
for publication in T. Haas, M. Kircher, T. Khler, G. Wich, U.
Schrken, R. Hagen, White Biotechnology, in R. Hfer, Ed.,
Sustainable solutions for modern economies, The Royal
Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, forthcoming 2009, ISBN
9781847559050.

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