Bioplastic
Plastics
are lighter and cheaper than other materials. They are the first choice in many
industrial and commercial applications. Bioplastics are form of plastics
derived from renewable biomass sources, which are produced from different
sources such as plants, algae, starch and microorganisms. Lemoigne first
described a bioplastic PHB (Poly-3-HydroxyButyrate) in Bacillus megaterium.
Important
bioplastic types are starch base plastics, polylactic acid(PLA), Poly-3-HydroxyButyrate(PHB),
polyamide 11, bio-derived polyethylene and genetically modified bioplastics.
The phaCBA
cluster encodes three proteins such as β-ketothiolase, NADPH-oxidoreductase and PHB
polymerase. The regulation of PHB pathway seems to be complex. In recombinant bacteria, an excess
polymerase leads to the formation of a large number of PHB.
There are
three important limitation in the bulk production of bioplastics which are
special growth condition, the difficulty involved in synthesising them from
expensive precursors and high cost of their recovery.
Bioplastics
do not only have ecological advantages, they also help to conserve fossil raw
materials and reduce our dependency on mineral oil. One trend in the bioplastic
industry has been to improve bioplastic performance characteristics by
utilizing nanotechnology.
