Biodegradable Plastic Pellets

Project cost & finance

Raw materials & machinery

Manufacturing process

1. Procure agricultural raw materials such as sugarcane, corn, wheat, or rice, and screen/dry them before chopping or grinding in a hammer mill or milling machine.
2. Convert starch and sugar from the crops into glucose through acidic or enzyme hydrolysis.
3. Transfer the glucose solution into a temperature- and pH-controlled aerobic fermentation tank with Lactobacillus bacteria to produce lactic acid.
4. Acidify and filter the resulting solution, then purify the lactic acid by converting it to a lactate ester, distilling it, and hydrolyzing it back to pure lactic acid.
5. Polymerize the pure lactic acid into oligo-lactic acid, convert it to lactide via cyclization, and purify it through distillation and crystallization to form pure lactide.
6. Feed the purified lactide into reactors to form Polylactic Acid (PLA) melt and remove volatile components using a vacuum degasser.
7. Mix the PLA melt with plasticizers, binders, flexibility agents, emulsifying agents, and colorants in a static mixer.
8. Pass the mixture through an underwater pelletizer to form pellets, cool and dry them, conduct quality checks, and pack them into plastic bags for storage.

Market

Biodegradable plastic pellets substitute traditional petroleum-based plastics and find wide applications in municipal composting, eco-friendly plastic films, bags, bottles, medical devices, shrink wraps, and 3D printing.

From the project report