Poly-B-hydroxybutyrate (PHB): A Biodegradable Polymer of Microbial Origin - Natural Polymers, Biopolymers, Biomaterials, and Their Composites, Blends, and IPNs - page 44

and some polyurethanes. Many plastics are completely amorphous, such as polysty-
rene and its copolymers, poly (methyl methacrylate), and all thermosets.

table 1. Families of synthetic plastic.

Plastics families

Amorphous Semi-crystalline

Ultra polymers PI, SRP, TPI, PA I , HTS PFSA, PEEK

High performance polymers PPSU, PEI, PESU, PSU Fluoropolymers: LCP, PARA, HPN, PPS,

P PA

Mid range polymers PC, PPC, COC, PMMA,

ABS, PVC Alloys

PEX, PVDC, PBT, PET, POM, PA 6,6,
UHMWPE

Commodity polymers PS, PVC PP, HDPE, LDPE

Natural PlastiC
Natural plastics/bio-plastics or organic plastics are special type of biomaterials, made
from renewable biomass sources such as vegetable oil, corn starch, pea starch, or mi-
crobiota, rather than fossil-fuel plastics which are derived from petroleum.

starch Based Plastics
Starch based plastics constituting about 50% of the bioplastics market, thermoplastic
starch, such as plastarch material, currently represents the most important and widely
used bioplastic. Pure starch possesses the characteristic of being able to absorb humid-
ity, and is thus being used for the production of drug capsules in the pharmaceutical
sector.

Cellulose Based Plastics
Cellulose bioplastics are mainly the cellulose esters like cellulose acetate, nitrocel-
lulose and their derivatives like celluloid.

some aliphatic Polyesters
The aliphatic biopolyesters are mainly polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) like the poly-
b-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), polyhydroxyvalerate (PHV), and polyhydroxyhexanoate
(PHH). It not only resembles conventional petrochemical mass plastics (like PE or
PP) in its characteristics, but it can also be processed easily on standard equipment that
already exists for the production of conventional plastics.

Polylactic acid (Pla) Plastics
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a transparent plastic produced from cane sugar or glucose. The
PLA and PLA blends generally come in the form of granulates with various properties,
and are used in the plastic processing industry for the production of foil, moulds, tins,
cups, bottles, and so on.