Starch bioplastics

Starch is the most commonly used agricultural raw material. Starch is inexpensive, widely available and relatively easy to handle. All-starch bioplastics are made from thermoplastic starch and formed with standard techniques for synthetic polymer films such as extmsion or injection moulding. The use of... 

To illustrate the problems that are faced in contemporary metabolic engineering it is worth considering two fields that have recently received much attention starch biosynthesis in potato tubers and the production of bioplastics in Arabidopsis. 

Bastioli, C. (1998). Starch based bioplastics Properties, applications and future perspectives. Proceedings of the symposium, Wurzburg, 11/12. Biologisch abbaubare Werkstoffe (BAW) . 

Bioplastics can be made by fermentating corn sugar (propaneidol-based Cerenol by DuPont), starch and cellulose can be used to make nylon (Michigan State University), or propaneidol can be used to produce stain-resistant textiles (DuPont). 

The first step will be to separate the seed from the straw (collection will obviously occur simultaneously, to minimise energy use and labour cost). The seeds may then be processed to produce starch and a wide variety of products, including ethanol and bioplastics (e.g. polylactic acid). The straw can be processed to products via various conversion processes, as described above for a lignocellulosic feedstock biorefinery. 

Biopolymer Technologies (Biop) offers a starch-based material containing an additive consisting of a vinyl alcohol/vinyl acetate copolymer. In 2005, the company transferred production of its bioplastics from The Netherlands to Schwarzheide in Germany and invested 7m in a new plant there, increasing its production capacity to 10,000 tonnes per annum. The announcement followed the decision earlier in 2005 by BASF to produce its Ecoflex biodegradable plastic, one of the components of Biop s Biopar resins, at the Schwarzheide site. 

Also in the Netherlands, Eosta, a company that trades in organically grown vegetables and fruit decided to package all their products in starch-based bioplastics. 

Biotec GmbH www.biotec.de/ensl/index ensl.htm Bioplast Thermoplastic starch bags, boxes, cups, cutlery, horticultural films, packaging films, planting pots, tableware, trays and wrap film... 

Bioplast (Biotec GmbH, a unit of Mehtta) Thermoplastic starch to be used for composting bags, disposable tableware, flower pots, etc. 

Starch is the major carbohydrate reserve in higher plants and has been one of the materials of choice since the early days of human technology. Recently, starch gained new importance as a raw material in the production of bioplastics, in particular for use in the synthesis of monomers to produce polymers such as polyflactic acid), and after chemical modification and thermomechanical processing, to produce the so-called thermoplastic starch. 

Protein-based materials have also been abundantly discussed in other publications [ZHA08], The next section of this chapter is, therefore, primarily oriented toward one example of an agropolymer starch. World production of starch-based materials for bioplastic applications is far from negligible. Put differently, it is greater than or ecpral to that of PLA. 

Bioplast Bio-Sphere (France) and Biotec(Germany) PBAT Starch-based... 

Biograde B-F Cardia Bioplastics (China) and Biograde Limited (Australia) Aliphatic copolyesters Plasticized starch-based... 

The global demand for bioplastics was estimated at 0.36 million tonnes, which is equivalent to 0.2 % of the annual petrochemical plastic production (Thompson et al. 2009). PHA accounted for about 10 % of the bioplastic market which is currently dominated by poly(lactic acid) and other starch-based biopolymers (Barker et al. 2009). Based on the statistics, in order to fulfill the PHA market demand... 

In parallel to the upcoming environmental protection movements of the 1980s, the awareness of the need for replacing fossil-based raw materials increased. The use of starch for the production of bioplastic materials was investigated and the first materials based on this research... 

In starch-based bioplastics, starch is fully utilized with a yield very close to 100%, whereas in starch-derived bioplastics, synthesized from monomers resulting from fermentation of glucose syrup, the yield is generally less than 45%, and more complex processes and a less efficient use of resources are involved. 

The peculiar properties of starch limit the number of applications where the use of starch-based bioplastics is advisable in terms of in-use performances and end-of-life behaviour. It means that with starch-based bioplastics it is not possible to just think in terms of replacement of traditional plastics and they represent a perfect opportunity to redesign systems with attention to the efficient use of resources. 

Cardia Bioplastics Ltd (Australia) in 2008 acquired the resins business established in 2002 as Biograde Limited. Their Product Development Centre and manufacturing plant is in Nanjing, China. Cardia Bioplastics Ltd commercializes a biomaterial obtained mixing starch and biodegradable polyesters in the presence of a transesterification catalyst [136]. 

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