The Financial Impact and Techno-economic Assessment of Bioplastics Based on Their Properties

This study has proved the value of the bioplastics in replacing the classical polymers used for various applications by employing a new and original econometric model which underlines the interdependence between the bioplastics price and the following mechanical properties: Young modulus, Tensile strength and Elongation at break. The model was applied for 5 different bioplastics: polylactic acid (PLA), cellulose acetate (CA), poly (butylene succinate) (PBS), Bio-polyethylene (Bio-PE) and Bio-polyethylene terephthalate (Bio-PET). The biopolymers cover a large range of bioplastics both biodegradable and non-biodegradable. The developed model was run on Gretl software using the OLS (ordinary least squares) method. The residuals values are acceptable which means that the interdependence model fitted well the known data. Among all bioplastics studied, polylactic acid (PLA) exhibits the best constants in terms of reproducibility. All the regression equations obtained for the econometric study offer the possibility of forecasting the price for any other sort of bioplastic and it is a useful tool for assessment the financial impact of a bioplastic.