Lactide and Poly lactic Acid Production

Lactide production technologies have been in use since the 1930s, with the related pubhcation by Carothers et al. (1932) about the reversible polymerization of six-membered cyclic esters. After that, lactide technology underwent a period of inactivity because the purity of lactide was insufficient for large-scale production. Lactide technology did well after DuPont developed a purification technique. This ultimately led towards mass-scale production by NatureWorks. This section mainly focuses on the mass-scale lactide production as developed by Cargill—DuPont (currently known as NatureWorks) in the early phases, as well as some related lactide technologies. [Pg.88]

Feed crude lactic acid to an evaporator oontinuously [Pg.89]

Remove water or solvent from orude laotio add [Pg.89]

Feed conoentrated lactic acid to a pre-polymer reactor [Pg.89]

Polymerize concentrated lactic add to from a prepolymer by removing water [Pg.89]

Big Chemical Encyclopedia