Bioresource Technology 289 (2019) 121700

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Review

Progress and perspective on algal plastics – A critical review T

a b a,⁎
Chaofan Zhang , Pau-Loke Show , Shih-Hsin Ho
a
State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, PR China
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, 43500 Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: There is a growing interest in developing bio-based biodegradable plastics to reduce the dependence on de-
Bio-based plastics pleting fossil fuels and provide a sustainable alternative. Bio-based plastics can usually be produced from lipids,
Bioplastics proteins or carbohydrates, which are major components of microalgae. Despite its potential for algal plastics,
Biocomposites little information is available on strain selection, culture optimization and bioplastics fabrication mechanism. In
Microalgae
this review, we summarized the recent developments in understanding the utilization of seaweed poly-
Seaweed
saccharides, such as alginate and carrageenan for bio-based plastics. In addition, a conceptual biorefinery fra-
mework for algal plastics through promising components (e.g., lipids, carbohydrates and proteins) from mi-
croalgae is comprehensively presented. Moreover, the reasons for variations in bioplastics performance and
underlying mechanism of various algal biocomposites have been critically discussed. We believe this review can
provide valuable information to accelerate the development of innovative green technologies for improving the
commercial viability of algal plastics.

1. Introduction
Various plastic products have become an essential part of life in
modern society. Among the common plastics, petrolic plastics ac-
counted for 99% (CIEL, 2017) whereas the fossil fuels are exhausted at
an accelerating rate. Worse still, the discarded wastes has created sev-
eral environmental issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions (Paula
et al., 2018), microplastics generation and their potential toxic effects
(Prata et al., 2019). Thus, the appeals for exploiting the sustainable and
environmental-friendly polymer is an extremely urgent to meet the
sustainable social development.
Bio-based plastics can be developed as an alternative to traditional
petrolic polymers (Mekonnen et al., 2013). Unlike the organic acids
monomer existed in microorganisms (Tomohisa et al., 2018; Lan and
Wei, 2016), the inherent polymers in the biomass do not need following
artificial synthetic polymerization process and thus the bioplastics can
be defined as bio-based polymers in biomass by International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) (Vert et al., 2014). In fact, some
bio-based plastics with short term biodegradability have been widely
applied in various packaging, medical/pharmaceutical materials and
agricultural products industries. The global market for bio-based plas-
tics was estimated to be 2.11 million tons in 2018 and can increase to
2.62 million tons by 2023 (European bioplastics, 2018). Currently, the
main bio-based plastics with commercialized scale are poly lactic acid

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: stephen6949@hit.edu.cn (S.-H. Ho).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2019.121700
Received 27 May 2019; Received in revised form 21 June 2019; Accepted 22 June 2019
Available online 25 June 2019
0960-8524/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Zhang, et al.
(PLA), polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), starch plastics, cellulose plastics
and proteins plastics (Mekonnen et al., 2013). Among these, PLA and
PHAs are the major drivers of bio-based plastics market and their
production has been estimated to double and quadruple by 2023, re-
spectively (European Bioplastics, 2018). After the life cycle assessment
(LCA), the PLA, PHA and starch compost bags represent better perfor-
mance than traditional petrolic polymers with respect to non-renewable
energy use (NREU) and global warming potential (GWP) (Yates and
Barlow, 2013). With advanced innovations, these bio-based plastics
seem overcome the sustainability and waste disposal issues. However,
except for PHAs, other raw bio-based plastics materials, such as poly-
saccharides and proteins are mainly derived from agricultural plants
(corn, wheat, potato and soybean) that might pose a potential threat to
food security, fertile land, and irrigation (Fabra et al., 2017). Thus, it is
imperative to develop the next generation bio-based materials to re-
place the current bio-based plastics.
Seaweed and microalgae have been considered as a potential feed-
stock for bio-based plastics due to their fast growth rate and extensive
environmental tolerance, significantly alleviating the food and water
resources competition (Venkatesan et al., 2016; Mathiot et al., 2019). In
addition, algae can efficiently mitigate the carbon dioxide produced
from flue gas (Ho et al., 2010), along with the accumulation of large
amounts of polysaccharides (> 60%) (Ho et al., 2013; Chandra et al.,
2014), proteins (60%) (Chandra et al., 2019) and lipids (> 50%) (Ho
et al., 2014; Nakanishi et al., 2014) that can be used as potential raw
materials for bio-based plastics. However, the development of biopo-
lymers from algae still remains highly conceptual. Therefore, we aimed
to discuss the current status and progress in using seaweed poly-
saccharides (alginate and carrageenan) for bio-based plastics. Further,
we attempted to provide a comprehensive discussion on the potential of
using microalgal intracellular components (lipids, carbohydrates and
proteins) for the production of bio-based plastics. Eventually, the de-
velopment of algal biocomposites with suitable modifications and their
advantages are summarized. We believe that this review would provide
the valuable insights into algal plastics.
2. Development of seaweed polysaccharides plastics
2.1. Alginate
Alginate is a polysaccharide that accounts for 22–44% of the dry
cells weight of marine brown seaweed, such as Macrocystis pyrifera (Lin
et al., 2018), Laminaria hyperborean (Li et al., 2019) and Phaeophyta sp.
(Venkatesan et al., 2016). Alginate is a linear copolymer containing
mannuronic acid (M) and guluronic acid (G) linked by 1,4-glycosidic
linkages (Venkatesan et al., 2016). The ratios of alternate GG, MM and
MG blocks represent different physicochemical properties. Higher
content of G showed a better moisture barriers and lower water vapor
permeability (Oms-Oliu et al., 2008). Alginate has been widely used in
various biomedical applications, such as drug delivery systems, wound
dressings and tissue regeneration due to its excellent biocompatibility.
Moreover, the calcium alginate-polyacrylamide complex could provide
better rigidity, recoverability and flexibility, which can be considered
as an alternative of cartilage (Sun et al., 2012). Notably, alginates could
crosslink with cations to form hydrogels or packaging films of which
Ca2+ may represent a better binding capacity, mechanical strength and
water barrier than Na+ (Cazon et al., 2017). For instance, the strength
and broken rate of straw-alginate achieved 216 g and 4% after ex-
changing of cations with Ca2+ (Xue et al., 2019). With the introduction
of Ca2+ in cellulose-alginate complex, the swelling inhibition was ob-
served to be over 95% and the Young’s modulus and tensile strength
were determined to be 135 MPa and 17 MPa, respectively (Benselfelt
et al., 2018). Thus, it can be ascertained that cations-associated alginate
has the potential in the development of various environmental-friendly
packaging materials.
2
Bioresource Technology 289 (2019) 121700
2.2. Carrageenan
Carrageenan is a common vegetal polysaccharide that is composed
of D-galactose and 3,6-anhydo-D-gactose, mainly extracted from
marine red algae (30–50%) (Ruperez and Saura-Calixto, 2001), such as
Chondrus crispus (Azevedo et al., 2015) and Mastocarpus stellate (Torres
et al., 2016; Venkatesan et al., 2016). Three types of carrageenan
fractions have been classified as kappa (κ), iota (ι), and lambda (λ)
carrageenan depending on the number and position of sulphate ester
groups (Venkatesan et al., 2016). Similar with alginate, the double helix
arrangement in carrageenan provides anions-hosting position for fa-
cilitating better gel structure. κ-carrageenan exhibits a specificity of
monovalent ions (such as K+), while ι-carrageenan prefers divalent ions
(such as Ca2+). Many carrageenan bioplastics are aimed at developing
edible packaging films (Cazon et al., 2017). For instance, ι-carrageenan
could be an excellent food coating material for ham conservation
(Carocho et al., 2019). In addition, poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) has been
used as a synthetic material to improve its poor mechanical properties.
The elongation of carrageenan-PVA films was found to be increased by
439.31% (Meng et al., 2018). Further, with the addition of 5% SiO2
nanoparticles, the tensile strength of κ-Carrageenan-gelatin composites
could be reinforced to 10.32 MPa (Hashemi Tabatabaei et al., 2018).
The global carrageenan market is the largest share of the global hy-
drocolloids market (Seisun 2016), which is predicted to approximately
US$ 1 Billion by 2024 (FMI, 2017). Recently, some viable products
from seaweed have been provided a readily accessible margins for
markets. However, over 80% of the products is only concerning appli-
cation sectors such as processed meats, dairy, desserts and jellies
(Campbell and Hotchkiss, 2017). In terms of the number of new bio-
plastic products appearing, it will show a more beneficial markets in the
future.
3. Potential of algal plastics
3.1. Microalgal lipids
PHAs, firstly discovered by an intracellular granule in bacteria, have
received growing attention due to its excellent thermoplasticity, bio-
degradability and biocompatibility (Kumar and Kim, 2018). PHAs can
be generally characterized into three types based on the carbon chain
length and proportion of monomer units. The first type of PHAs con-
tains 3–5 carbon atoms exhibiting highly crystalline features (Venkata
Mohan et al., 2016). Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is the most well-
known short-chain-length (SCL) PHAs that is regarded as the promising
sustainable alternative to petrolic polymer (Taepucharoen et al., 2017).
The second type of PHAs is mainly composed of 6–14 carbons (defined
as medium-chain-length PHAs, PHAMCL), usually possessing higher
elastomeric and easy deformation properties. The third type of PHAs,
such as poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) con-
tains different proportions of SCL and MCL (Ghysels et al., 2018) ex-
hibiting appropriate crystallinity compared to PHASCL and PHAMCL
(Ghosh et al., 2019). Despite the differences from other common bio-
based plastics, PHAs are usually as hydrophobic as PE (polyethylene)
and PP (polypropylene) (Haase et al., 2012; Lambert and Wagner,
2017), which are considered as the most promising substitute for pet-
rolic plastics (Pietrini et al., 2007).
Although PHAs have been widely applied in food and pharmaceu-
tical industries (Kaewbai-ngam et al., 2016), their production cost is
relatively high due to the high cost of required organic carbon such as
sugar or fatty acids (Haas et al., 2015; Riedel et al., 2015) for hetero-
trophic bacterial fermentation. In addition, the utilization of such or-
ganic sources may have competition with agricultural land and food
supply (Singh et al., 2011). In contrast, photosynthetic production
system could provide an alternative for sustainable PHAs production.
Many reports indicated that several cyanobacteria, such as Synechocystis
sp. (Kaewbai-ngam et al., 2016), Spirulina sp. (Haase et al., 2012),
C. Zhang, et al.
Nostoc sp. (Bhati and Mallick, 2015), Oscillatoria sp. (Taepucharoen
et al., 2017), and Calothrix sp. (Kaewbai-ngam et al., 2016) can convert
CO2 to PHAs with content of 1–10% by using sunlight. During PHAs
biosynthesis, β-ketothiolase catalyzes two acetyl-CoA into acetoactyl-
CoA (Hauf et al., 2015) and then acetoacetyl-CoA reductase catalyzes
acetoactyl-CoA into (R)-3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA followed by the poly-
merization of PHAs through PHAs synthase (Taroncher-Oldenburg
et al., 2000) (Kamravamanesh et al., 2018). Interestingly, Nostoc mus-
corum Agardh has been reported to biosynthesize PHBV that exhibited
desirable plastic properties (Bhati and Mallick, 2015; Bhati and Mallick,
2012). To date, Spirulina platensis has been considered as a potential
PHAs producer due to the development of various reliable large-scale
cultivation system in the world (Wagner et al., 2016).
Although cyanobacteria appear to have a high potential for PHAs
production, various impediments in their biosynthesis might hinder
their industrial application. PHAs synthesis in cyanobacteria often oc-
curs under environmental stress such as nutrient-limited cultivation
conditions. For instance, the PHB could reach ∼23% and ∼35% under
the nitrate deficiency (Sharma and Mallick, 2005) and phosphate de-
ficiency (Mallick et al., 2007), respectively, which may lead to slower
growth resulting into low PHAs productivity (Carpine et al., 2018).
Thus, genetic engineering or mutation techniques have been applied in
cyanobacteria to improve PHAs synthesis that will further help to en-
hance the economic feasibility. Synechocystis sp. strain was genetically
modified with overexpressing pha genes that resulted into 2.6 folds
increase in PHB production under N-limited medium (Khetkorn et al.,
2016). Carpine et al. reported highest PHB productivity of 7.3 mg/L·d
after optimal genetic modifications (Carpine et al., 2017). In addition,
there was 2.5-fold improvement in PHAs content in Synechocystis sp.
PCC6714 after UV light exposure (Kamravamanesh et al., 2018). Cur-
rently, to obtain more space for PHB, Escherichia coli was to manipulate
cell morphology in length and width without negatively affecting cell
growth by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats
interference (CRISPRi) (Elhadi et al., 2016). This indicated that syn-
thetic biology associated with appropriate mutation techniques might
provide a new route for improving the algal bioplastics production,
especially for threadlike algae. Alternatively, the use of mixotrophic
cultures to replace the conventional photoautotrophic cultures can not
only help reduce the medium cost but also recycle the organic matters
from wastewater. In this way, an economical and environmental-
friendly alternative can be developed to accelerate the commerciali-
zation of microalgal PHAs production.
3.2. Microalgal carbohydrates
3.2.1. Monosaccharide polymerization
PLA has been regarded as a promising material for bioplastics pro-
duction due to its substantial biodegradability, excellent barrier prop-
erties and low toxicity (Lambert and Wagner, 2017). The basic mono-
mers of PLA are L-lactic acid and D-lactic acid derived from renewable
carbohydrates during fermentation (Nguyen et al., 2012; Paula et al.,
2018). In particular, PLLA (poly L-lactide) and PDLA (poly D-lactide)
are two main commercial PLA products, individually composed of dif-
ferent ratios of chiral lactic acid (Bulota and Budtova, 2015). The PLLA
belongs to crystalline and the PDLA is affiliated with semi crystalline in
nature and both are identical to conventional plastics (Bulota and
Budtova, 2015).
Several microalgae, such as Chlorella sp., Scenedesmus sp.,
Synechococcus sp (Aikawa et al., 2014) and Nannochloropsis sp. are ex-
tremely rich in carbohydrates (> 60%) that can be exploited for PLA
production. Nannochlorum sp. 26A4 was able to directly produce PLA
by converting carbohydrates to lactic acid in dark anaerobic fermen-
tation (Hirayama and Ueda, 2004). It was reported L-lactic acid could
be efficiently produced by bacterial fermentation of Hydrodictyon re-
ticulum (Nguyen et al., 2012). An engineered Escherichia coli strain JU15
yielded 0.6 g lactic acid/g of sugars through fermentation (Parra-
3
Bioresource Technology 289 (2019) 121700
Ramírez et al., 2019). It can be ascertained that the development of
microalgal PLA production via integration of sugar-rich microalgae
cultivation and efficient bacterial fermentation can provide a potential
alternative based on large-scale production system in near future.
3.2.2. Starch
Starch is a common polysaccharide composed of homoglucan or
glucopyranose for the synthesis of biomacromolecules, such as amylose
and amylopectin, respectively. Amylose is a linear chain polymer based
on α(1–4) links while amylopectin is a highly branched polymer based
on α(1–4) and α(1–6) bonds (Cazon et al., 2017). The crystallinity of
starch usually increased with the increment of amylopectin. In order to
disintegrate the crystallographic structure of starch, high temperature is
required during bioplastics manufacturing process. Gelatinization is a
common process in which starch granules are heated in excess water
(usually > 63%) (Cazon et al., 2017). The requirement of high tem-
perature (65–90 °C) and high shear stress can be attributed to the hy-
drogen bonds present in amylose (Mathiot et al., 2019). In general, the
three-dimensional structure and plastic properties are mainly depen-
dent on the ratios of amylose and amylopectin. More amylose in crude
starch would exhibit higher tensile strength, greater Young’s modulus
and lower elongation at break, which is the basic requirement for bio-
based plastics (Tabasum et al., 2019). For instance, the Young’s mod-
ulus increased from 730.7 MPa to 1217.2 MPa when amylose content
increased from 4.3% to 77.4% (Li et al., 2011). Although some micro-
algae species are rich in starch, there is a lack of information on their
polymeric structures. Further, the relationship between cultivation
condition and ratios of amylose and amylopectin has seldom been op-
timized and discussed in previous studies.
The current starch-rich biomass for bioplastics production is mainly
derived from staple food, which significantly hinders its commerciali-
zation pertaining to severe food competition. Interestingly, the starch in
microalgal cells can be rapidly accumulated to over 50% under low
temperature or nutrient-limited cultivation (Ho et al., 2013). This
process, integrated with CO2 mitigation and wastewater treatment can
provide a novel suitable feedstock for the production of of bio-based
plastics. Mathiot demonstrated that Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 11-32A
could yield considerable amounts of starch bioplastics with glycerol
addition in a twin-screw extruder under sulfur-deprived condition
(Mathiot et al., 2019). However, due to limited information available,
there is the need of systematic research in microalgal starch bioplastics
to comprehensively evaluate its economic feasibility and meet the
practical demand.
3.2.3. Cellulose
Cellulose is a linear glucan polymer consisting β-1,4 linked D-glu-
cose units, and often serves as natural fillers for reinforcement of bio-
plastics. Among the four types of crystalline structures in cellulose,
most raw cellulose belonged to type I while type II can exhibit superior
thermodynamic stability (Klemm et al., 2005). Thus, several chemical
modifications have been adopted to transform the raw cellulose into
cellulose II (Constante et al., 2015). The highly crystalline structure and
numerous hydrogen bonds make cellulose exhibit excellent bio-
compatibility, biodegradability and chemical stability.
The cellulose content of algae such as Ulva fasciata and Lyngbya sp.
is about 14%-17% (Ververis et al., 2007). The major advantages of algal
cellulose over terrestrial biomass are no competition with agricultural
land and no requirement for agricultural cost (fertilizer or pesticides
etc.). Most studies on cellulose bioplastics have focused on seaweed
because of its high crystallinity degree (80–90%) (Klemm et al., 2005)
and without lignin (Lakshmi et al., 2017). The cellulose from Lyngbya
sp. exhibited the tensile strength and tensile modulus of 215 MPa and
24 GPa, respectively (Constante et al., 2015). It was shown that the
cellulose derived from Cladophora sp. could be successfully used as
reinforced materials for bio-based plastics (Mihranyan, 2011). The
microalgal cell wall can provide a certain amount of cellulose and
C. Zhang, et al.
hemicellulose. In addition, electrospinning technique could provide a
small-diameter fibers (from micrometer to nanometer) to demonstrate a
better reinforcement performance due to higher length-to-diameter
ratio. Nanocellulose biocomposites (110 nm diameter) has been pro-
duced by poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO) - Spirulina sp. mixture, and sub-
sequently applied in tissue engineering (de Morais et al., 2010).
Moreover, the nanocellulose composed of polycaprolactone (PLC) and
Spirulina sp. was successfully fabricated via electrospinning (Kim et al.,
2012). Further, 10% microalgal biomass (Scenedesmus almeriensis)
coupled with PEO could fabricate ∼300 nm nanocellulose via electro-
spinning (Sankaranarayanan et al., 2018). This indicated that the de-
velopment of microalgal cellulose through electrospinning can provide
a promising option for sustainable nanocellulose production.
3.3. Microalgal proteins
Plant proteins (e.g., wheat proteins) have been extensively used as
raw materials for bio-based plastics production such as edible films,
microencapsulating agents and biodegradable sheet (Swain et al., 2004)
due to its biodegradable and renewable characteristics (Mekonnen
et al., 2013). Similarly, the proteins in microalgae can be considered as
an alternative feedstock for bioplastics production because many mi-
croalgae species (e.g., Spirulina sp. and Chlorella sp.) can easily accu-
mulate abundant proteins with rapid growth rate (without environ-
mental stress) in large-scale cultivation systems (Chandra et al., 2019).
Botryococcus braunii residues with 78% proteins content could form
200 nm diameter fibers as a result of acidic-electrospinning process
(Verdugo et al., 2014). More interestingly, proteins-rich biomass with
polysaccharides adjunction (Chlorella sorokinana) was found to improve
the mechanical property and water vapor resistance (Gomez-Heincke
et al., 2017; Han and BeMiller, 2008), which is beneficial for bioplastics
application. Overall, systematic research of converting whole protein-
rich microalgal cells into proteins bioplastics represents a novel and
inherent biosynthesis of superior complex.
4. Development of algal biocomposites
Except using microalgae composition as the bio-based plastics
shown above, algae can also be used as filler (Table 1). Fillers are a
common modification strategy that provides great mechanical re-
inforcement and is cost-effective. Currently, the percentage of micro-
algal fillers is usually lower than 30%. Polypropylene incorporated with
10% brown algae (Eklonia spp.) could significantly enhance the
moisture resistance, which is suitable in high humid environments
(Echeverria et al., 2017). Hassan et al. reported that 70% PP in-
corporated with 30% seaweed (Ulva sp.) could achieve best tensile and
bending modulus (Hassan et al., 2008). The percentage of fillers is a
critical parameter that can influence the bioplastics performance. The
elongation at break and tensile strength could reach 50% and 26 MPa,
respectively when Spirulina sp.-to-PVA-to-glycerol ratio was in the
range from 10:7:3 to 10:9:3 (Shi et al., 2017). In addition, suitable
pretreatment of microalgae would also be helpful in improving the
performance of algal plastics. It has been reported that sulfuric acid-
Table 1
Algal fillers and their percentage mixed with conventional plastics.
Species Percentage
Seaweed Eklonia sp. 10%, 20%
Ulva sp. 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%
Enteromorpha crinite 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%
Microalgae Spirulina sp. 58%, 67%, 77%, 90%
Chlorella sp. 9.5%, 11%, 12.5%, 15%, 17%
Microalgal residues Botryococcus Braunii 20%, 30%
Nannochloropsis gaditana 10%, 20%, 30%
Nannochloropsis salina 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%
Bioresource Technology 289 (2019) 121700
treated green algae (Enteromorpha crinite) coupled with PP showed 24%
higher strength and thermal stability (Jang et al., 2013). Interestingly,
even with similar amounts of microalgal fillers addition, bioplastics
degradation time was inconsistently reduced. This can be attributed to
the species-dependent biodegradation characteristics. It was reported
that Spirulina could achieve 30% higher biodegradation ability than
Nannochloropsis (Shi et al., 2017). Moreover, the addition of different
microalgal strains as fillers could affect the thermo-mechanical poly-
merization with conventional plastics (Zeller Mark et al., 2013).
Over the past decades, interests focused on microalgal biodiesel
production has been dramatically booming because some microalgae
could accumulate large amounts of lipids under specific culture con-
ditions (Chandra et al., 2019). However, there are limited studies on
efficient utilization of the lipids-extracted microalgal residues (com-
posed of a large number of proteins, carbohydrates and cellulose). Thus,
it can provide an economic and environmental friendly strategy for
bioplastics production when microalgal residues can be used as fillers.
Toro et al. demonstrated the production of optimized plastic bio-
composites that were composed of poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) and
20–30% microalgal residues (Toro et al., 2013). Further, it was reported
that the optimized poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT)-to-
microalgal residues ratio for biocomposites was 4:1 (Torres et al.,
2015). Moreover, the mechanical and thermal properties of bioplastics
could be improved when 20% of Nannochloropsis salina residues were
added with PVA composites (Tran et al., 2018).
To further strengthen the function of microalgal fillers, graft copo-
lymerization has been commonly applied for enhancing the compat-
ibility between microalgae and polymers. In addition, maleic anhydride
is the most common compatibilizer to polish the interface between
microalgae (e.g., Chlorella sp. and Spirulina sp.) and polymers (e.g., PP
and PE) (Otsuki et al., 2004) (Zhu et al., 2017). However, the use of
microalgal fillers for plastic manufacture seems feasible, more ad-
vanced technologies, such as nanofillers, block copolymers and novel
additives should be adopted and applied in future research.
5. Additives modification
Apart from the sustainability issues and biodegradation of raw
materials, plasticizer is an important technique to increase the perfor-
mance of most bio-based plastics. In general, plasticizer can reduce the
brittleness and crystallinity, lower the glass transition temperature, and
improve toughness and impart flexibility (Mekonnen et al., 2013). The
plasticization includes grafting with raw polymer, which can weaken
the dispersion forces and hydrogen bonds (Mekonnen et al., 2013).
Depending on different targets, an ideal plasticizer often requires bio-
degradable, non-toxic, stable or non-volatile characteristics.
Among them, glycerol is a classic plasticizer for hydrophilic poly-
mers (Fabra et al., 2017; Shi et al., 2017; Torres et al., 2015; Zeller
Mark et al., 2013). Luckily, glycerol is the co-product formed during
microalgal biodiesel production (Laurens et al., 2017) and thus can be
utilized, in crude form, as a cost-effective plasticizer (Li and Reeder,
2011). However, a systematic research is required in the utilization of
microalgal extracted co-product (glycerol) as the plasticizer for plastic
Other Component Max Tensile strength Max Elongation at break Reference
PE (Echeverria et al., 2017)
PE 22 MPa 7% (Hassan et al., 2008)
PE 42.9 MPa / (Jang et al., 2013)
PVA 26 MPa 45% (Shi et al., 2017)
PE 7 MPa 18% (Zeller Mark et al., 2013)
PBS 18.7 MPa 8.6% (Toro et al., 2013)
PBAT 10.5 MPa 500% (Torres et al., 2015)
PVA 27.5 MPa 502% (Tran et al., 2018)
4
C. Zhang, et al.
manufacturing process.
6. Conclusion and perspectives
The current progress and future perspectives of developing algal
bioplastics has been comprehensively reviewed in this study. In addi-
tion, the advantages and potential of using microalgal intracellular
components (starch, cellulose and proteins) for bioplastics production
has been thoroughly discussed. Moreover, fundamental research on
algal strain selection, culture optimization, effective manipulation of
microalgal metabolism and the implementation of genetic modifica-
tions should be required to further enhance the efficiency and perfor-
mance of algal plastics production. Hopefully, this review will en-
courage more researchers focusing on this field to facilitate the
development of economically viable algal plastics production processes
in future.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by State Key Laboratory of Urban Water
Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (No.
2019DX09) and Project of Thousand Youth Talents.
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