Since its inception, plastic has been widely used in various fields of the national economy, such as the packaging industry and the disposable products industry, which has brought great convenience to human production and life.However, its huge use and waste amount has led to increasing environmental pollution, including river pollution, farmland mulch pollution, and Marine plastic pollution.

Biodegradable plastics refers to a kind of plastics whose performance meets the use requirements during the storage period and can be dissolved into environmental harmless substances under natural environmental conditions, which is considered one of the effective ways to solve the problem of plastic pollution.

Among them, PLA, PBS and PBAT are highly industrialized.Different biodegradable plastics have different characteristics, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.To promote the understanding and understanding of biodegradable plastics, this paper comprehensively compares the above biodegradable plastics in terms of production capacity, comprehensive performance and application fields.

production capacity status

Under the promotion of plastic restrictions, the degradable plastic industry is very hot, the domestic plastic enterprises have expanded production.It is clear that PLA and PBS /PBAT capacity are at the top of the market.At present, the global PLA capacity is 420,000 tons / year, and the capacity under construction and proposed is over 3 million tons

Large-scale production and planning partly illustrate that PLA and PBS/PBAT materials are currently the most recognized biodegradable plastics on the market.In addition, the domestic production technology of PLA lags significantly behind, especially the propylene ester raw materials is controlled by people, leading to China's domestic PLA capacity is significantly lower than the PLA capacity of some foreign countries.

PHA, PPC, PGA, PCL degradable plastic such as existing capacity and the future is expected to increase capacity, the main reason is that such biodegradable plastic is still in the primary stage of industrialization, production technology is immature, production cost, leading to the market recognition is not high, this stage with PLA and PBS/PBAT in replace general plastic competition, but more used in the field of high-end biomedical materials.

comprehensive performance comparison

Polyethylene (PE) is a widely used traditional plastic and a major alternative to biodegradable plastics.PE has excellent crystallisity, water vapor barrier, and weather resistance, and these properties can be collectively known as "PE characteristics".In fact, the current common biodegradable plastics are basically aliphatic polyester, such as PLA and PBS, can be broadly regarded as the ester bond conferred by the ester bond in its molecular chain containing ester bonds, and the fat chain gives it "PE characteristics".

The melting point and mechanical properties of PBAT and PBS are comparable to PE, indicating the application of PE in the disposable products industry.The rest of the varieties have the disadvantages of poor mechanical performance, poor thermal resistance, too fast degradation speed and high cost, which need to be further improved from large-scale applications.

The application of  these degradable materials, take PLA as an example.

(1)Biomedical Field: In the field of biomedicine, polylactic acid materials can be used as drug transport materials, tissue engineering stent materials, bone repair materials, etc.

The medical field is the area where pla and its complexes were applied earlier.At present, it has conducted extensive basic research and clinical applications in bone surgery, thoracic surgery, maxillofacial surgery, and targeted therapy of tumors.

(2)Industrial and Agricultural Areas: Polylactic acid has good plasticity, thermal resistance and physical processing properties, which can be processed into agricultural land film to make up for the fragile and non-degradable defects of traditional plastic film. It can also be processed into accessory engineering materials, building ropes, pesticide and chemical fertilizer slow release materials in the automobile industry.By comparing the degradability of ordinary polyethylene (pe) mulch and polylactate mulch, as well as the growth of cotton under different mulch covers, it was found that polylactate mulch began to degrade at about 20 d, the degradation area can reach about 80% in the cotton harvest period, and the degradation mulch showed good insulation performance.By comparing the effect of ordinary pe mulch and polylactic acid (pla) mulch on watermelon pla nting, the test showed that pla plastic film is biodegradable and does not cause environmental pollution. Covering pla mulch can promote the growth and development of watermelon.

(3)Food packaging material: Polylactic acid has good biodegradable, excellent antibacterial and antimildew properties compared to materials such as polyethylene (Polyethylene,PE), PVC (Polyvinyl chloride,PVC), polypropylene (Polypropylene,PP).The cold fresh meat is vacuum packaged with PLLA-PVA-PCL composite film and packaging materials supplemented with streptococcus lactate. The shelf period of the meat packaged is far longer than the cold fresh meat packaged with PE plastic wrap, and the meat maintains relatively good color and quality.

Under different gas conditions, the test results of unpackaging, PLA air conditioning packaging, PE air conditioning packaging, PE vacuum packaging on carambola preservation effect show that PLA film packaging bag can well preserve the appearance quality and nutritional components of carambola, and prolong the shelf period of carambola.

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