What are the advantages of PLA (polylactic acid) compared with traditional plastics?

Environmental protection

PLA is a biodegradable material that can be completely decomposed into water and carbon dioxide by microorganisms in the natural environment or composting conditions without causing environmental pollution.

In contrast, traditional plastics degrade extremely slow in the natural environment and may take hundreds to thousands of years and cause “permanent” pollution.

2

Source of raw materials

The raw materials of PLA mainly come from renewable plant resources (such as corn, cassava, sugar cane, etc.) and do not rely on fossil fuels.

Traditional plastics are mainly derived from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas), and their production process involves energy-intensive refining and synthesis, accompanied by large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

Physical and mechanical properties

PLA has good tensile strength and ductility, as well as good oxygen and air permeability, and has odor isolation properties.

Although slightly inferior to some traditional plastics in terms of heat resistance, rigidity, etc., its transparency, gloss, biocompatibility, etc. are excellent.

4

Incineration characteristics

When PLA is incinerated, its incineration calorific value is the same as that of incineration paper, which is half of that of incineration of traditional plastics (PE materials), and no toxic and harmful gases and chemicals such as sulfides and nitrogen compounds are released.

Application Prospects

PLA has a wide range of applications, including food packaging, disposable tableware, medical supplies, textiles and other fields.

With the advancement of modification technology, the performance shortcomings of PLA are gradually being compensated, such as improving its thermal stability, water resistance and mechanical properties through blending, compounding, grafting and other methods to further expand the scope of application.

To sum up, PLA is superior to traditional plastics in terms of environmental protection, raw material sources, physical and mechanical properties, incineration characteristics and application prospects, and has significant advantages.

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