Lactic acid (LA) is a nifty molecule with an eclectic range of applications in innumerable industries and is produced through biological and chemical processes. Factually, LA is converted into lactide (LAC), which is the precursor for polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is considered one of the first-rate replacements for petroleum-based products and is believed to be environmentally sustainable. Nevertheless, it has always been challenging due to increased PLA productivity costs. Reduction in the LA and LAC production price directly echoes the production price of PLA. Therefore, low-cost LA and LAC production methods have to be found to produce PLA effectively. Hence, this study uses cheap agricultural sources derived microbial LA to make LAC through dimerization. Produced LAC was analyzed through FT-IR, NMR, TGA and XRD. FT-IR results revealed that the successful dimerization of LA to LAC, NMR analysis revealed that the aligning of methine and methyl groups in produced LAC, TGA analysis exposed that the microbial LAC has more thermal stability than the commercial LAC, XRD results showed that the produced LACs are crystalline with 32% and 42% crystallinity. To the best of our acquaintance, this manuscript is pioneering one to describe LA production through microbial fermentation and uses this monomer to produce LAC through dimerization.
Keywords: Lactic acid; Lactide; Microbial fermentation; Polycondensation; Polylactic acid.
© King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2023.