Schematic representation of the integrated LA production process from agro-wastes. Credit: LIU Yajun
Lactic acid (LA) is an important chemical intermediate for a plethora of products, from medicine to cosmetics to degradable materials, and is the building block for biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA), a main component in compostable, recycled plastics.
With a high demand for PLA and lactic acid in general, finding a non-food carbon source for the LA synthesis process is a big step toward developing and implementing more sustainable practices.
Researchers from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators are streamlining a way to use the abundant agro-waste products in non-food feedstocks to derive LA from lignocellulose, a complex structural network