Lactide is an important raw material for the synthesis of polylactic acid (PLA). The level of domestic production in the domestic market is continuing to improve.

Lactide is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H8O4. It appears as colorless and transparent flake or needle crystals. It is easy to hydrolyze and polymerize. It is easily soluble in chloroform and ethanol, but insoluble in water. Lactide is an intermediate for the synthesis of polylactic acid and has broad application prospects in medical, chemical, food and other fields.

There are various methods for producing lactide, including the acrylate method, which refers to the method of using acrylic acid as raw material and reacting with methanol, ethanol, and reaction with catalysts to generate lactide; the propanol esterification method refers to using propanol as the raw material. The raw material is a method of reacting with formic acid and acetic acid to generate lactide under the action of a catalyst; the depolymerization and cyclization method refers to a method of using lactic acid as a raw material and generating lactide through a polycondensation reaction and a depolymerization and cyclization reaction. Among them, the acrylate method is currently the most commonly used method for producing lactide. It has the advantages of fast reaction speed, high output rate, and high purity of reaction products.

Polylactic acid is the main downstream product of lactide. In recent years, as a green, environmentally friendly, safe and non-toxic new biodegradable material, polylactic acid materials have gained momentum and have been widely used in food packaging, biomedicine, industry, agriculture, petrochemicals and other fields. The global polylactic acid market will exceed US$800 million in 2022, and market demand will continue to grow.

At present, the industrial production of polylactic acid usually uses the lactide ring-opening polymerization method, which refers to the method of first using lactic acid as raw material to undergo depolymerization and cyclization reaction to generate lactide, and then using lactide as raw material to prepare polylactic acid through ring-opening polymerization. Lactide is a key raw material for the production of polylactic acid. The polylactic acid produced can be used as drug sustained-release materials, controlled-release coating materials, etc., and is widely used in the medical field. With the rapid development of the downstream market, the demand for lactide continues to increase, and its global market demand will exceed 400,000 tons in 2022.

According to the “China Lactide Market Monitoring and Future Development Prospects Research Report 2023-2027” released by the Industrial Research Center It shows that the technical difficulty of lactide production is relatively high. Currently, there are only a few companies in the world with mass production capabilities of lactide, including France’s Total-Corbien and the United States’ NatureWorks. my country’s lactide production level is low. For a long time, domestic products have been mainly imported from Total Cobien. However, as the global demand for high-end polylactic acid continues to increase, the market is gradually showing a situation in which supply exceeds demand. Therefore, Total-Corbien is gradually stagnating external sales.

Against this background, in order to meet domestic demand for polylactic acid, domestic companies need to continue to research key technologies and vigorously improve the localization level of lactide. Industry analysts personnel said that at this stage, my country has Zhejiang Hisun Biotech, COFCO Science and Technology, and Anhui Feng Yuan, Jindan Technology, Wanhua Chemical and other companies have lactide production facilities or are under construction. The domestic level of domestic lactide production is continuing to improve, and the industry has huge room for growth.