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Although polylactic acid (PLA) only accounts for a small portion of plastic consumption, the material is gaining traction as brand owners pursue sustainability certification
.
PLA is derived from lactic acid produced by the fermentation of sugars, so it is often described as a biodegradable material
.
Technically, it is degradable under industrial composting conditions
.
While it may degrade in the natural environment, the process may take slightly longer
.
Fortunately, science keeps advancing, and researchers in the UK have found the sweet spot for biodegradation by adding sugars to the PLA chain
.
.
PLA is derived from lactic acid produced by the fermentation of sugars, so it is often described as a biodegradable material
.
Technically, it is degradable under industrial composting conditions
.
While it may degrade in the natural environment, the process may take slightly longer
.
Fortunately, science keeps advancing, and researchers in the UK have found the sweet spot for biodegradation by adding sugars to the PLA chain
.
Scientists from the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies (CSCT) at the University of Bath have tuned the degradability of PLA by incorporating different numbers of sugar molecules into the polymer
.
They found that adding 3 percent of "sugar polymer units" to PLA caused the biopolymer to degrade by 40 percent within six hours of exposure to UV light
.
The technology is reportedly compatible with existing plastics manufacturing processes, meaning it has the potential to be rapidly tested and adopted by the plastics industry
.
"When biodegradable plastic is thrown into an industrial waste composter, the degradation happens very quickly," said Dr Antoine Buchard, a Royal Society University researcher at CSCT.
"If you put it in home gardens, soil and oceans, things change.
different
.
" He was the lead on the study
.
"PLA is made up of long polymer chains," Buchard added.
"Our study adds 'sugars' to the polymer chains, connecting everything together through bonds that can be broken with UV light
.
This weakens the material, Break it down into smaller polymer chains that are more sensitive to hydrolysis
.
This could make plastics more readily biodegradable in the natural environment, such as in ocean or garden compost
.
"
In the past, scientists have tried hydrolysis as a means of increasing the degradability of PLA, but according to the researchers, this is the first time anyone has used light as a medium
.
It's still early days, and it remains to be seen whether this research will hold up outside the lab
.
But Buchard hopes that "in the future this technology could be used to make plastics that are strong in use but break down easily when they can't be reused and recycled
.
"
Original link
https://doi.
org/10.
1039/D2CC01322C
