New developments on the ring opening polymerisation of polylactide

Polylactides (PLA), biodegradable aliphatic polyesters, produced solely fro m renewable resources may substitute petrochemically based polymers in a br oad range of applications in the near future, if we manage to produce them at lower cost and higher efficiency as nowadays. Possible applications incl ude food packaging for meat and soft drinks, films for agro-industry and no n-wovens in hygienic products. The authors developed, based on a new cataly tic system, a reactive extrusion polymerisation process, which can be used to produce PLA continuously in larger quantities and at lower costs than be fore. This extrusion polymerisation process has been developed and rested w ith laboratory scale machines and the possibilities to extend this polymeri sation process to lactide based blockcopolymers have been investigated. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.