Bioplastics
The term bioplastics covers three classes of materials: biodegradable, biobased or biobased and biodegradable plastics. According to EN 16575, biobased materials consist entirely or partially of biomass, i.e. sugars, starches or vegetable oils. While bio-based plastics, such as biopolyethylene (bio-PE), are structurally identical to their conventional counterparts, novel materials have completely different properties. These novel materials include polylactic acid (PLA) and starch blends and their derivatives.
Biodegradable plastics can be completely decomposed into water and CO2 under defined conditions. Typical applications for degradable plastics are found in medical technology and packaging industry.
Research topics
- Investigation of bioplastics processability in comparison to conventional synthetic polymers
- Development of numerical methods for predicting processing behaviour of bioplastics