The first commercial PLA plant using the “PLAneo” process developed by German engineering group ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (Essen; www.thyssenkrupp-industrial-solutions.com) has gone on stream at Jilin Cofco Biomaterials, a subsidiary agricultural group Cofco (Beijing / China; www.cofco.com/en), in Changchun in the northeastern province of Jilin – see Plasteurope.com of 09.01.2017. According to Plasteurope.com's Polyglobe database (www.polyglobe.net), the facility has capacity to produce 10,000 t/y of the bioplastic.

ThyssenKrupp, which also supplied engineering and key components for the Chinese unit, began developing the technology at a pilot plant in Guben / Germany in 2010 – see Plasteurope.com of 05.12.2011. The process, the group says, converts lactic acid into PLA in a “particularly efficient and resource-friendly way.” Another advantage is that it also can be scaled up for large-scale plants capable of producing up to 100,000 t/y. Underscoring the technology’s economics, Sam Pelkonen, CEO of the business unit Electrolysis & Polymers Technologies, said it enables production of high quality bioplastics with a wide range of properties at a price competitive with conventional plastics.