New developments on the ring opening polymerisation of polylactide

Polylactides (PLA), biodegradable aliphatic polyesters, produced solely from renewable resources may substitute petrochemically based polymers in a broad range of applications in the near future, if we manage to produce them at lower cost and higher efficiency as nowadays. Possible applications include food packaging for meat and soft drinks, films for agro-industry and non-wovens in hygienic products. The authors developed, based on a new catalytic system, a reactive extrusion polymerisation process, which can be used to produce PLA continuously in larger quantities and at lower costs than before. This extrusion polymerisation process has been developed and rested with laboratory scale machines and the possibilities to extend this polymerisation process to lactide based blockcopolymers have been investigated. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.