Behind the recent launch of China's largest polylactic acid plant stand the Chinese Academy of Sciences and pharmaceutical and chemical maker Zhejiang Hisun Chemical Co.Ltd.

The academy's subsidiary, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, announced March 18 that a new line with 5,000 metric tons (about 11 million pounds) of annual capacity has come on stream, claming the products are "as good as, and some with even better properties" than the world leader NatureWorks'.

The project took off after seven years of research and preparation, the announcement said.

NatureWorks' plant opened in 2003 with a nominal capacity of 300 million pounds (about 136,000 metric tons). But the company has been running at half that capacity, according to a report from PN's sister publication European Plastics News. NatureWorks, however, said it will reach, and probably exceed, its 300-million-pound capacity.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), which spurred controversy in the United States in June 2005 by offering $18.5 billion to buy Unocal Corp., is finishing up a project that converts CO2 to degradable plastic.

China Blue Chemical Ltd., a subsidiary of CNOOC, announced it will start the production of carbon dioxide-propylene oxide copolymers (PPC) in June, according to China's Shanghai Securities News. The project will be the largest in the world with an annual capacity of 3,000 metric tons, the company said in a press release.

The facility is located in China's most southern province and an island in the South China Sea, Hainan.

The total investment on the project was reported to be around 152 million yuan ($21.4 million).

Heavily dependent on imported oil and petrochemical products, Vietnam is joining the club of bio-based plastics. Tien Thanh Co. Ltd. in Ho Chi Ming City is marketing plastic items made out of wheat or maize flour, a report in the Viet Nam News said.

The product line seems to consist of boxes and cups that are said to decompose in wet environments in 102 days. They cost 40-50 percent more than their conventional plastic counterparts.

The caveat, as I see it, is that the humid tropical nation in Southeast Asia is home to agriculture products such as rice, soybeans and sugar cane, but wheat and maize are not primary crops and the production is limited. Meantime, the soaring food prices in Vietnam will have a great impact on the supply and cost of domestic and imported wheat and corn. The domestic market size for bio-plastic products is also minimal.

With the apparent roadblocks, the concept of corn-based plastic may remain more symbolic than practical for a while.

Medical equipment and supplies manufacturer Henan Piaoan Group Co. Ltd. has sealed an agreement to purchase patented polylactic acid production technology, engineering and equipment from Japan's Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd.

The project in Changyuan, Henan province, is expected to go on stream in March 2011, with an initial annual capacity of 10,000 metric tons (22 million pounds), according to a press release issued by Hitachi. Piaoan plans to expand the capacity to 150,000 metric tons (331 million pounds) "in the future," with a total investment of 1.83 billion yuan (US$267 million).

Piaoan plans to make medical supplies out of PLA biopolymer and become the first "high-quality, industrialized PLA production base in China," the release said.

Hitachi Plant Technologies developed PLA manufacturing technology in 2004. The company claims its patented technology produces pure, colorless and easy-to-process PLA materials.

Privately-owned Piaoan reported 1.2 billion yuan (US$176 million) in 2007 annual sales. The company didn't comment on the new project. Its corporate Web site, however, said the company invested 300 million yuan (US$44 million) to build 10,000 metric tons of PLA capacity with equipment imported from Switzerland.