We mainly talk about the more commonly used ring-opening polymerization method. Its process is roughly as follows:
1. Take materials
After crushing corn and other shell crops, starch is extracted from it, and then the starch is made into unrefined glucose. Now many high-tech technologies have overcome the crushing process and directly extract raw materials from a large number of crops.
2. Fermentation
Glucose is fermented in a manner similar to the production of beer or alcohol, and after fermentation, glucose becomes lactic acid that is added to human muscle tissue similar to food.
3. Intermediate products
The lactic acid monomer is transformed into an intermediate product-water-reduced lactic acid, or lactide, through a special concentration process.
4. Aggregation
After the lactide monomer is vacuum-purified, a dissolution process without solvent is used to complete the ring-opening action to polymerize the monomer.
5. Polymer modification
Because the molecular weight and crystallinity of the polymer are different, the material properties can vary greatly. Therefore, the PLA is modified in different ways for different applications.
