Recently, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that in 2025, the manufacturing industry of bio-based materials would grow by 27.9%, and the output of bio-based chemical fibers would increase by 19.5%.
Among them, PLA and PHA, these two bio-based materials, as the core solutions to replace traditional petroleum-based plastics, are becoming the key drivers of global green transformation. PLA, using renewable resources such as corn and sugar cane as raw materials, can completely degrade into carbon dioxide and water under industrial composting conditions, and has been applied on a large scale in fields like packaging and tableware. Meanwhile, PHA, synthesized through microorganisms, has the unique advantage of being able to degrade throughout the natural environment (such as in soil and ocean) and has significant potential in high-end scenarios such as medical implants and environmental packaging.
Challenges and Technological Breakthroughs
01 | PLA: The Technological Dependence and Cost Challenges Behind Capacity Expansion
Currently, the global PLA production capacity has exceeded 3 million tons per year. China, with a production capacity of 1.2 million tons per year, ranks first globally. Leading enterprises such as Anhui Fengyuan (3.5 million tons per year) and Jindan Technology (1 million tons per year) are accelerating their expansion plans. However, behind these impressive figures lie significant concerns: 80% of the domestic production technology for caprolactone relies on the American NatureWorks company. The import prices of core production equipment, the twin-screw reactors, have increased by 220%, and the cost of corn-based PLA is highly sensitive to fluctuations in grain prices.
02 | PHA: The Challenges of Crossing from Laboratory Achievements to Industrial Applications
Compared to the scale bottleneck of PLA, the PHA field is achieving breakthroughs through technological innovation. In April 2025, the first phase of the Yichang PHA production base of Tsinghua University (10,000 tons/year) was put into operation, and the second phase will expand to 30,000 tons/year. Through the extreme salt-tolerant bacteria technology, the production cost has been reduced to 30,000 yuan/ton (a 40% decrease); Shanghai Blue Crystal Microbiology leads the market with its PHA raw materials that have the only food-grade certification in China, the United States, and Europe. Its "Multispecies Lipid" product portfolio focuses on soil improvement and salt-affected land restoration. The meal and kitchen waste treatment project of Guangxi Blue De Recycled Resources focuses on the "waste - biological material" recycling. Its technical route replaces straw with meal waste oil to avoid the traditional raw material cost problems.
However, the industrialization of PHA still faces multiple obstacles: The global planned production capacity is over 500,000 tons per year, but the actual output is less than 50,000 tons. From a technical perspective, PHA has poor thermal stability (it decomposes at 130℃) and a narrow processing window, which restricts the expansion of its application scenarios; economically, the production of PHA from kitchen waste still costs 3,000 yuan per ton more than PLA. As a relevant expert from the Qingdao Institute of Energy Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "The weakness of PHA is not in the laboratory technology, but in the engineering transformation ability from the production of grams to the mass production of tons."
The predicament of industrial development: The gap between policy goals and technological strength
01 | The Chaos of False Degradation
The 122 strict degradation certification standards implemented by the EU have posed a huge challenge to domestic enterprises that only have 19 related testing capabilities. The phenomenon of 430 tons of "pseudo-degraded" plastic debris being newly added to the Pacific Ocean in 2025 exposed that the marine degradation rate of PBAT (often mixed with PLA) is only 7.3%. In the technical demand list released by Guangxi this time, indicators such as "zero discharge of wastewater and solid waste" and "biological purification of biogas" are precisely technical corrective measures against such "pseudo-green" phenomena.
02 | Cost Cycle Dilemma
The industrialization of bio-based materials follows the "10-fold rule": the cost in the laboratory stage is 1 yuan, it rises to 10 yuan during the pilot-scale expansion, and may soar to 100 yuan when achieving industrial production. The PHA research team from Tsinghua University disclosed that during the process of scaling up from a 200-liter fermentation equipment to a hundred-ton production line, the stability of the strain decreased by 37% and the energy consumption increased by 2.8 times. This lack of engineering transformation capability led to the reduction of production capacity of the biode 1,3-propanediol (PDO production facility jointly built by DuPont and BASF).
03 | Risk of Supply Chain Disruption
The PLA production requires of caprolactone, the high-activity bacterial strains relied on for PHA preparation, and the special enzyme preparations for bio-refining, constitute the three major "supply chain bottlenecks" in the bio-based material industry. According to the data in 2025, the self-sufficiency rate of caprolactone in China is less than 30%, and the import dependence has led to a 52% price drop within two years. The core bacterial strains related to PHA patents are controlled by 80% by European and American enterprises. Tsinghua University broke the patent blockade of the Halomonas bacterial strain through extreme environment bacterial strain screening technology. In this list of Guangxi, the assessment indicator of "having ≥ 3 authorized invention patents" highlights the urgent need for the autonomy of core industrial intellectual property rights.
Breakthrough path: From policy-driven approach to innovation ecosystem reconfiguration
01 | Technological Breakthrough: Focusing on the Dual Goals of "Non-Food Crop Use" and "High Value Utilization"
The breakthrough in the high-value utilization of PHA holds greater market potential: Blue Crystal Microbiology has applied PHA to medical sutures (achieving controllable degradation cycle), while Kai Sai Bio has developed long-chain PHA for the high-end packaging sector. The premium prices of these related products are over five times higher than those of traditional plastics. This "scaling up of low-end materials and creating profits with high-end materials" dual-track strategy is gradually reshaping the development logic of the bio-based materials industry.
02 | Industrial Synergy: Establishing a "Raw Materials - Technology - Application" Closed-loop System
The "corn husk - lactic acid - PLA - fiber" full industrial chain model created by Anhui Fengyuan has reduced the raw material cost by 40%. The kitchen waste treatment project of Guangxi Lading Recycled Materials, in collaboration with downstream degradable tableware enterprises, jointly builds a demonstration production line to achieve an efficient turnover of "same-day collection - next-day granulation - within a week on the market". This "leading enterprise takes the lead, while small and medium-sized enterprises provide support" industrial symbiosis model has shortened the collection radius of straw from 50 kilometers to 20 kilometers, and reduced the collection cost by 22%.
03 | Policy Innovation: Promoting Mechanism Transformation from "Blood Transfusion" to "Self-Production"
This "challenge-based" approach adopted by Guangxi (where the funding provided does not exceed 25% of the total project investment) is more directive compared to the traditional subsidies, clearly requiring the technological achievements to be implemented in Guangxi and binding them to industrialization application cases. Drawing on the experience of the EU's "premium subsidy for bio-based products", it is suggested to implement tax deduction policies for non-food-based PLA and high-end PHA products, and to promote green procurement incentives for downstream enterprises that use bio-based materials. As industry experts have said: "Industrial policies should not be short-term painkillers, but should be catalysts for cultivating a sustainable innovation ecosystem."
04 | Standards Leading the Way: Contesting Global Dominance in Degradation Technologies
In the face of 122 technical barriers constituted by EU certifications, China urgently needs to establish a dual-dimensional standard system for bio-based materials, namely "environmental friendliness + functional compatibility". It is suggested to accelerate the formulation of specific standards for marine degradation and soil degradation, and support enterprises such as Blue Crystal Microorganisms in leading the formulation of international standards.
The next decade: Reconfiguration of the industrial roles of PLA and PHA
By 2035, the PLA is expected to become a "white petroleum" that can replace traditional plastics - as non-food-based production technologies mature, its cost will gradually approach that of petroleum-based plastics. Its market share in packaging and textile industries is expected to reach 50%. PHA will be divided into two application tracks: the low-end market will achieve scale breakthroughs by relying on low-cost raw materials such as kitchen waste and sludge; the high-end market will build technical barriers in medical and other fields.
