Production plant for novel bioplastics starts operation

Production plant for novel bioplastics starts operation

July 30, 2022 Off By Sebastian Reisig

The Polymer Group has established another subsidiary, SoBiCo GmbH (Solutions in BioCompounds). The focus of activities is on flexible PLA copolymers, a novel class of bioplastics marketed under the name Plactid®. The successful development is the result of several years of collaboration between the Polymer Group and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. On July 5, 2022, the commissioning of the first production line in Pferdsfeld was celebrated with 150 guests.

The bioplastic PLA, also known as polylactic acid or polylactide, is obtained from lactic acid and has some of the strongest market potential in the field of bioplastics. However, conventional PLA materials are often stiff and brittle. SoBiCo GmbH therefore intends to open up completely new fields of application for PLA, a bioplastic that is already widely used today, in the form of a copolymer, for example for flexible packaging films, automotive injection molded parts and thermoplastic elastomers for construction applications. “Our newly developed PLA copolymers are characterized by the fact that their mechanical properties can be adjusted over a very wide range,” explains Dr. Gerald Hauf, managing director of the Polymer Group. “For example, elongations at break – a characteristic value that indicates how deformable a material is – of 3 to 300 percent can be achieved with Plactid®. This makes these bioplastics interesting for a much broader range of applications than it is the case with conventional PLA,” says Hauf.