Did you know that environment-friendly plastic can be manufactured from biobased raw materials? This plastic, called polylactic acid (PLA), is biodegradable in industrial composting plants. The production process was invented as early as 1954, but it took almost 50 years for this plastic to be used in large quantities. Sulzer has made major contributions to optimizing the PLA process for industrial use. Sulzer’s falling film crystallizer is key for the monomer purification, the SMR loop reactor is essential for the ring-opening polymerization and our devolatilization technology achieves an excellent monomer recovery. In cooperation with our customers, Sulzer constantly develops new process technologies to reduce the harmful effects of the chemical industry. For example, Sulzer distillation plants are used to produce a non-hazardous process oil for tire production. Let us help you to develop sustainable or non-hazardous process technologies.