Cargill Dow Polymers

Cargill Dow Polymers LLC started up its first commercial-scale plant for polylactic acid (PLA) at Blair, Nebraska, in the US in 2002. The unit has planned capacity to produce 136,000 tonnes per annum. Until then, the pilot production capacity for PLA was only 4,000 tonnes per annum. 

Cargill Dow Polymers (CDP) regards LCA to be an excellent process development tool to provide an insight about the polylactic acid (PLA) production, to set process improvements goals and to provide eco-profile data to be used by practitioners in performing their own life cycle studies . On the other hand, CDP wants to make information available for the shareholders and the public due to the increasing demand of transparency. CDP started the first LCA in 1993 and updated it 3 times. In 2003, when the 140000 metric ton plant (MTPA) facility will be operative, new engineering data will be available for a next update. 

Polylactic acid (PLA) has been known for many years but use of this biodegradable plastic polymer was largely confined to internal surgical stitching due to the relatively high cost. Recent advances in the process for fermentation of com starch to produce lactate, coupled with chemical lactide formation, have resulted in a cost that is economically attractive. Cargill Dow Polymers have announced investments of over 300 million in a new facility in... 

If we assume a 1% per year increase in yield for corn (versus 3% per year over the past 50 years) and no change in the planted acreage, then the annual increase in corn produced is about 100 million bushels per year, or over 2 million metric tons of new com every year. The Cargill-Dow Polymers plant being opened in Blair, Nebraska, in late 2001 will produce 140,000 metric tons per year of polylactic acid from approximately 200,000 metric tons of corn. That is, a new large scale plant for bioplastics wiU only use about 10% of one year s increase in the com crop. Thus it seems unlikely that biomass use for chemicals and materials will really have much effect on grain supplies and prices. However, this does not hold frue for new large scale liquid fuel uses of biomass. 

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