Successful start-up of Purac's 75,000 ton lactide plant in Thailand

01-Mar-2012 - Thailand

Purac has successfully completed the construction of its new 75,000 metric ton/year Lactide plant in Thailand. The construction of this EUR 45 million state-of-the-art plant started in March 2010 and has recently been finalized. At the moment the plant is being commissioned and the first test runs have already been finalized. Several batches of high quality PURALACT® Lactides have been produced and actual deliveries of PURALACT® to customers are scheduled to start early 2012.

This investment is driven by the commitment of Purac and its parent company CSM to play a leading role in the development of the market for lactic acid based bioplastics (Poly Lactic Acid or PLA).

François de Bie, Marketing Director Bioplastics comments: “This new Lactide plant will take us to the next step in developing the PLA market, together with our partners. In addition, we have made good progress in our application development program for bioplastics. Based on our proprietary technology we have demonstrated the benefits of Purac’s PLA building blocks in demanding applications in the packaging, foam, fiber and consumer products industries.”

“The successful start up of our 75,000 ton Lactide plant marks another milestone in Purac’s commitment to the development of the PLA market” says Jeroen Jonker, Vice President Bioplastics at Purac, “We are now able to supply monomers that can be transformed into high performance PLA, whilst providing the scale and security of supply as required by the end use markets. I am particularly excited that we are increasingly able to attract customers in the high end markets, a clear confirmation of our high performance PLA strategy”

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/136737/successful-start-up-of-purac-s-75-000-ton-lactide-plant-in-thailand.html