Mitsubishi Chemical of Japan (U.S. office in White Plains, N.Y.) is building a plant to make succinic acid by bacterial fermentation of corn. The goal is to make a “Green Sustainable Plastic,” polybutylene succinate, using succinic acid and butanediol. This biodegradable polyester, dubbed GS Pla, is said to be much softer and more pliable than polylactic acid (PLA), a commercial bioplastic also derived from corn. GS Pla is reportedly as soft as polyethylene but can be made harder like polypropylene by adding fillers. Mulch film is one intended use. Mitsubishi aims to start commercial production early this year. Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Tokyo, is already developing polybutylene succinate reinforced with bamboo fiber as a replacement for PP in auto interiors. It will be used in a minicar to be launched in Japan in 2007.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies Group helps industrial partners tackle the sustainability challenges presented by fiber-reinforced composite materials.
Flat-to-downward trajectory for at least this month.
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Dear Plastics Technology Audience Member:
Starting on Thursday August 8, 2024, PT will begin “gating” its premium content, asking all new website users to provide some information about themselves — name, title, employer, email address — before they are provided free access to the content.
We are doing this because the ways PT’s audience finds and accesses our content is changing. Google’s search algorithms, increasingly, make it difficult to connect PT’s content with the people who might make use of it. On top of that, generative AI like ChatGPT is serving up PT content to internet users without attributing that content to PT.
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