Upgraded Version Of "Corn Plastic" Outlines Low Carbon Industry Chain

A few days ago, a special fashion show was held in the joint Hall of private enterprises in Shanghai, World Expo.

On the T stage, the underwear and T-shirt worn by the model are of ordinary style and color, but the warm, smooth texture makes people feel like reaching out to touch, like the second layer skin of the body.

It is very difficult for the audience to relate the fashion on T to the plastic products such as cups and bowls.

But the product descriptions on one side clearly stated that they were "born in Shanghai a few years ago."

From the degradable tableware of the year to today's green fiber, "corn plastic" is being implanted in more and more fields of industrial production and daily life. The invention of a university laboratory after 5 years of market incubation is gradually drawing a green emerging industry.

When the earth comes to the earth, the clothes will spring again.

Clothes made of corn or cassava or sweet sorghum are very mysterious.

In fact, there is a key intermediate link, that is, the extraction of lactic acid from these crops and the formation of polylactic acid granules through special polymerization.

In 2006, Shanghai Jay Liang biological materials Co., Ltd., after independent research and development, first broke the monopoly of foreign countries, and passed the key step of "corn lactic acid polylactic acid", and the domestic "corn plastic" was born.

Starting from polylactic acid, many fork roads can be produced and made into a wide variety of plastic products, textiles or medical materials.

Together with JE Liang, polylactic acid was first made into tableware and daily necessities as a bubble lunch box - the terminator of "white pollution".

However, if only stares at plastic products, polylactic acid will be "useless".

Faced with the crisis of oil depletion, chemical fiber urgently needs to find renewable green successors.

Supported by the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission, 4 years ago, with the Textile Science Research Institute, textile holding group, Donghua University, Jiangsu and Zhejiang textile enterprises, we found out the second way of polylactic acid application, fiber and its fabric.

The whole life course of polylactic acid fiber just constitutes a circular ring: if it is buried in the soil for two or three years, the strength will disappear. If it is buried with other wastes, it will decompose into water and carbon dioxide under the action of microbes in a few months, and become the nutrients needed for crop growth.

That is to say, "species" came out.

However, for clothing that needs repeated wear and washing, degradation is both an advantage and an application difficulty.

Ren Jie, chairman of the company and professor of Tongji University, told reporters that the current polylactic acid fiber is not suitable for hot pressing because of its poor heat resistance. Therefore, it is more suitable for underwear fabrics. During the subsequent dyeing process, it is easy to degrade in alkaline environment, and it is difficult to dye it in all colors.

Not competing with people for food, "corn plastic" upgraded to "biomass material".

At the beginning of the birth of "corn plastics", the annual global stock of corn is as high as 100 million tons.

Nowadays, with the vigorous development of biofuels, especially corn and ethanol, corn is becoming hotter.

He realized that the production of polylactic acid using corn as raw material is not only cost rising, but also may compete with others for food and food safety.

So, in the laboratory of College of materials and engineering, Tongji University, "corn plastic" continues to upgrade.

First, cassava, sweet sorghum and other non grain crops, and then straw, straw and other agricultural waste, one by one has become the "corn plastic" raw materials.

Nowadays, the technology of lactic acid production from non grain crops has been used in Anhui, Henan and other places. The technical route of "agricultural waste - sugar lactic acid" has also been passed, but the cost is relatively high.

On the one hand, the increasingly abundant source of raw materials and the application of products with frequent patterns, the name of "corn plastic" is somewhat outdated.

As the main inventor, Ren Jie is more willing to call it biomass material, behind which is a huge low-carbon industry.

At present, the company has built a pilot plant of 100 tons of polylactic acid in Yangpu District, purchased lactic acid raw materials from upstream enterprises, and then synthesized its polylactic acid granules with its unique "one-step method".

Not long ago, a 10000 ton level polylactic acid plant will be built near Ma'anshan, a raw material source in Anhui. The development of polylactic acid fiber is also looking for new applications in order to enlarge the capacity of the plant.

Ren Jie said that once the technology cost of extracting lactic acid from straw and straw is up to the requirement of industrialization, a lactic acid plant with non grain sources will be built next to the polylactic acid plant, so as to get rid of the dependence on corn completely.

Carbon absorption and emission reduction, polylactic acid "low carbon world"

If the biodegradable "corn plastic" is understood by more people as an innovative technology to deal with "white pollution", the development of the polylactic acid industry will build a low-carbon world of carbon absorption and emission reduction: planting non grain crops, absorbing a large amount of carbon dioxide, and using agricultural waste to avoid the air pollution caused by incineration; all polylactic acid products can easily return to nature.

It is no exaggeration to say that with the two basic parts of plastics and fibers, polylactic acid can almost spell "the whole world" - small garbage bags, diapers, mobile phones and computer shells, which are large enough for automobile and aircraft parts, and even for human bone pins and sutures.

In the world of polylactic acid, which was created by Jay Liang, the mosaic of "jigsaw puzzle" is becoming clearer.

In addition to all kinds of daily plastic products, the polylactic acid fibers developed are comparable to the price of Tencel and modal. The prospect of high-grade underwear is good. The ordinary nonwoven shopping bags can only be used repeatedly, while the nonwoven bags woven by PLA fibers can really "go into the dirt" and are very popular with Expo visitors.

The story of polylactic acid seems to be endless, and the university laboratory behind JL Liang has cast its eyes on the next 5-10 years.

Ren Jie revealed that the team is working with Boeing to develop aircraft interior decorations. The modified polylactic acid fibers mixed with natural hemp fibers have superior flame retardancy. Even if the fire is accidentally fired, the combustion products are not easy to drip and will not cause suffocating toxic gas.