Blow Molded Bioproducts from Natural Plastics

In order to diversify agriculture and enhance agriculture's role as a reliable supplier of raw materials to industry, new biobased products from agricultural materials need to be developed. This proposal will prove the technical feasibility of producing a biobased natural plastic resin which can be economically blow molded into useful products. Metabolix will use a combination of its proprietary high molecular weight biobased polymers, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), in conjunction with novel reactive extrusion processes and polymer formulation technology to generate biobased PHA resins which can be economically blow molded into useful final products. Success in this endeavor will open up a large segment of the current thermoplastics market to biobased products. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of using Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a family of bioplastics made by the biological conversion of agricultural feedstocks, for blow molding applications by applying recent advances in PHA formulation and processing technology. A PHA formulation will be developed with the necessary rheological properties and crystallization behavior needed for blow molding operations. Once a satisfactory formulation is developed, laboratory blow molding trials will be conducted to confirm proper rheological behavior of the PHA formulation and physical properties of the molded part.