PLA is the abbreviation of Poly Lactic Acid but in nomenclature it is Poly Lactide. PLA is 100% made from plant extracted starch after fermentation, dehydration, and polymerization processes. Poly Lactide is a high-molecular polymers with new ultipurposes stacking fertilizer, it is made from a 100% recyclable resources like corn, beet or rice.
PLA life cycle begins from corn. Harvested corn were delivered to corn processing factory to derive starch from corn core (protein, fat, fiber, calcification, and water) and then separated by enzyme hydrolyzing to become glucose. Glucose under neutral surrounding will ferment lactic acid. Lactic acid under mild surrounding and without solvent dehydrates to produce low molecular pre-polymers. These pre-polymers, after acceleration to minimize polymerization, will bring up ring-shape neutral Bi-polymers, said dehydrated lactic acid. By manipulating the purity of dehydrated lactic acid, it can produce larger range of particle volume.
Research and Development team of SJ Group has trialed PLA foam in 2006 but could not reach volume production standard as its defective rate were too high; In 2007, the middle part product quality is modified and we have successfully diminished the PLA foam weight and approached the preliminary volume standard. We now have a 100% PLA closed cell and a PLA compound material open cell, two systems could be selected to industrial volume production purposes.
| Characteristics | PLA |
|---|---|
| Expansion Rate： | 5~10 times |
| Density (g/cm³)： | 0.35~0.15 |
| Tensile Strength (kg/cm)： | 12~1.5 (CNS 10487) |
| Elongation (%)： | 50~100 (CNS 10487) |
| Tearing Strength (kg/cm): | 8.0~0.8 (JIS K6767) |
| Thermal Conductivity (Kcal/mh℃)： | 0.035~0.025 (CNS 10487) |
| 25% compression Strength (kg/cm²)： | 1.5~0.2 (CNS 10487) |
| Compression Set (%)： | 3.5~7.5 (CNS 10487) |
| Dimensional Change on heating %： | 〈 10% (CNS 10487) |
| Water Absorption (g/cm³)： | 〈 0.01 (CNS 10487) |
