Roadmap market opportunities biodegradable PHA

There are many market opportunities for PHAs, a family of plastics that are both biobased and biodegradable. Invest-NL and Wageningen University & Research are joining forces to accelerate the market introduction of PHAs. They have developed a roadmap that shows which PHAs are appropriate for specific applications, what the characteristics of logical early adapter products are, and what developments are still needed.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates or PHAs are polyesters produced in nature by micro-organisms from raw materials such as sugars and vegetable oils and from various waste streams such as food waste and sewage sludge. Although production volumes are still limited and production costs are high, the market demand is clearly growing. When the production volumes go up, the costs may also go down, which in turn can open up new markets. What complicates the market implementation is the fact that the production of PHAs requires a different production process than the processes used to make conventional plastics such as PE, PP, and PET. This will require substantial investments and a lot of research.

More at WUR>