History of Biodegradable Plastics

In the late 1980s, biodegradable plastics came into use. Unfortunately, these came to be misapplied in a number of situations. The misapplication of inappropriate or incompletely developed technology led to products which often did not meet performance claims and expectations. The so-called first generation technologies often lacked one or more of the following issues (1)  

The S5mthesis, processing, and technology of renewable polymers has been reviewed (2-9). Further, the state-of-the-art for food packaging applications has been reviewed (10-12). Using biomass for the production of new polymers can have both economic and environmental benefits (13). 

Biomass-derived monomers can be classified into four major categories according to their natural resource origins (14)  

Oxygen-rich monomers including carboxylic acids, e.g., lactic acid succinic acid, itaconic acid, and levulinic acid, but also ethers, such as furan 

Hydrocarbon-rich monomers including vegetable oils, fatty acids, terpenes, terpenoids and resin acids 

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