China's biodegradable plastics developed to a new level

With the success of the pilot test of the production of hydroxybutyric acid and hydroxyvaleric acid (PHBV) by the fermentation of starch sugar plus propionic acid, China's research and production in this area have reached the international advanced level. This indicates that China has taken a new step in the production of biodegradable plastics. This was announced to the press by the Committee of Experts today at the results appraisal meeting held by the Microbiology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
According to statistics, the production of plastic products in China in 2000 was about 18 million tons, of which about 3.6 million tons of non-degradable garbage. This has brought huge "white pollution" to the environment. Polyhydroxyalkanoates are a class of thermoplastic polyesters that have received widespread international attention in recent years because they can be completely biodegraded to carbon dioxide and water, and have high biocompatibility and hydrophobicity, so they can be widely used. For biomedical materials and packaging materials, without causing environmental pollution. Unfortunately, due to the selection of process routes, only one company in the world currently has an annual production capacity of 1,000 tons of PHBV, and the production cost is high and it has failed to achieve large-scale production. In the past, relevant domestic scientific research units imported such raw materials for scientific research from abroad, and the price was as high as 20,000 US dollars/kg.
The Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has completed the national "Ninth Five-Year Plan" research task "using starch hydrolyzed sugar to ferment and produce polyhydroxybutyric acid." After the pilot test, it cooperated with Hangzhou Tiantian Industry Co., Ltd. to produce "hydroxybutyric acid and hydroxyl "Valeric acid copolymer" pilot test. At present, Tianjiao Industry Company has invested 20 million yuan to establish a "Chinese Academy of Sciences Microbiology Institute pilot base", a production line with an annual output of 1,000 tons of PHBV will soon be put into use.