Driven by the dual goals of carbon reduction and the "plastic restriction" policy, bio-based polyester, as a green alternative to traditional petrochemical-based polyester (such as PET), is becoming a focus of research and development and industrialization in the chemical industry. Traditional PET relies on crude oil as a raw material, facing not only the long-term risk of resource depletion but also the difficulty of biodegradation of discarded products, resulting in over 50 million tons of white pollution annually. Bio-based polyester, however, is made from renewable biomass (corn, sugarcane, straw, etc.), and its lifecycle carbon emissions are 30%-50% lower than PET. Some products are also biodegradable in the natural environment, perfectly meeting the industry's development needs of "resource recycling + environmental friendliness."

The current core technological path for bio-based polyester focuses on breakthroughs in three key areas: raw material conversion, polymerization process, and performance optimization. On the raw material side, we've broken through the limitations of traditional starch fermentation for sugar production and developed a straw cellulose enzymatic saccharification technology. By genetically engineering Trichoderma reesei, we've doubled the cellulase activity, achieving a straw-to-glucose conversion efficiency of over 90%, significantly reducing raw material costs (by 25% compared to corn). In the polymerization process, we've innovatively adopted "enzyme-catalyzed polymerization" instead of traditional chemical catalysts, using immobilized lipase as a catalyst to synthesize polylactic acid (PLA). This reduces the reaction temperature from 180°C to 120°C, reduces energy consumption by 40%, and eliminates heavy metal residues, increasing product purity to 99.5%. Furthermore, addressing the shortcomings of bio-based polyester, such as its lack of toughness and poor heat resistance, we've increased PLA's impact strength by 1.8 times and its heat distortion temperature from 55°C to 80°C through composite modification with nanocellulose, expanding its application in food packaging, textile fibers, and other fields. Domestic industrialization is accelerating. A biochemical company has built the world's first 100,000-ton/year straw-based PLA production line. Its products are widely used in biodegradable express bags and disposable tableware, replacing approximately 80,000 tons of traditional plastic annually. Another company has developed bio-based PET (PEF), which, thanks to its superior barrier properties (five times the oxygen barrier rate of PET), has entered a pilot program for beverage bottle packaging. A well-known beverage brand has reduced carbon emissions per bottle by 42% after adopting PEF bottles.

In the future, with the deep integration of biorefining technology and AI-powered process optimization—for example, using AI models to control parameters such as fermentation temperature and enzyme concentration in real time to further improve raw material conversion rates—and the expansion of new raw material sources such as algae and microbial oils, bio-based polyester is expected to account for over 20% of the global polyester market by 2030, becoming a core force driving the chemical industry's transition from petrochemical dependence to a bio-recycled approach.