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China’s polylactic acid (PLA) industry chain in 2021

PLA11

1. Overview of industrial chain:
The full name of polylactic acid is poly lactic acid or poly lactic acid. It is a high molecular polyester material obtained by polymerization with lactic acid or lactic acid dimer lactide as monomer. It belongs to a synthetic high molecular material and has the characteristics of biological basis and degradability. At present, polylactic acid is a biodegradable plastic with the most mature industrialization, the largest output and the most widely used in the world. The upstream of polylactic acid industry is all kinds of basic raw materials, such as corn, sugarcane, sugar beet, etc., the middle reaches is the preparation of polylactic acid, and the downstream is mainly the application of polylactic acid, including environmental protection tableware, environmental protection packaging, etc.

2. Upstream industry
At present, the raw material of domestic polylactic acid industry is lactic acid, and lactic acid is mostly prepared from corn, sugarcane, sugar beet and other agricultural products. Therefore, the crop planting industry dominated by corn is the upstream industry of polylactic acid industrial chain. From the perspective of China's corn output and planting area, China's corn planting output will reach 272.55 million tons in 2021, with a large scale, and the planting area has been stable at 40-45 million hectares for many years. From the long-term supply of corn in China, it can be expected that the supply of corn will remain stable in the future.
As for other raw materials that can be used to produce lactic acid, such as sugarcane and sugar beet, China's total output in 2021 was 15.662 million tons, which was lower than that in previous years, but still at the normal level. And enterprises around the world are also actively exploring new ways to prepare lactic acid, such as using the sugar source in wood fibers such as straw and sawdust to prepare lactic acid or exploring the method of using methane to produce lactic acid. On the whole, the supply of the upstream industry of polylactic acid will be relatively stable in the future.

3. Midstream industry
As a completely biodegradable material, polylactic acid can bring the raw material end into the resource regeneration and recycling system, which has the advantages that petroleum based materials do not have. Therefore, the consumption of polylactic acid in the domestic market is increasing. The domestic consumption in 2021 is 48071.9 tons, an increase of 40% year-on-year.
Due to the low production capacity of polylactic acid in China, the import quantity of polylactic acid in China is much larger than the export quantity. In recent years, the import quantity of polylactic acid has risen rapidly driven by domestic demand. In 2021, the import of polylactic acid reached 25294.9 tons. The export of polylactic acid also made great progress in 2021, reaching 6205.5 tons, a year-on-year increase of 117%.
Related report: report on development trend analysis and development prospect prediction of China's polylactic acid product industry from 2022 to 2028 issued by Zhiyan consulting

4. Downstream industry
In downstream applications, polylactic acid has been applied in many fields with its unique biocompatibility and biodegradability. At present, it has been widely used in food contact level packaging, tableware, film bag packaging and other products and fields. For example, the agricultural plastic film made of polylactic acid can be completely degraded and disappeared after the harvest of crops, which will not reduce the water content and fertility of the soil, but also avoid the additional labor and operation costs required for the recovery of plastic film, which is the general trend of the development of plastic film in China in the future. The area covered by plastic film in China is about 18000 hectares, and the use of plastic film in 2020 is 1357000 tons. Once degradable plastic film can be popularized, the polylactic acid industry has a huge space for development in the future.


Post time: Feb-14-2022