循環経済のためのバイオプラスチック：原料、加工、ライフサイクル持続可能性、産業規模への道筋

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a comprehensive overview of bioplastics LCA and identifies research gaps in burden-shifting and AI applications.

🏢実務担当者:Offers insights into bioplastics' market applications and barriers, useful for material selection and sustainability reporting.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights policy and infrastructure needs for scaling bioplastics, relevant for circular economy regulations.

The global plastic pollution crisis demands a fundamental re-evaluation of materials systems beyond incremental improvements to fossil fuel-based polymers. Bioplastics, polymers derived from renewable biological feedstocks, biodegradable under defined conditions, or both, offer a chemically diverse and rapidly evolving platform for transitioning toward circular materials economies in which the value of carbon, energy, and material is retained across multiple use cycles. This review provides a comprehensive and critically organized account of the bioplastics field, spanning three generations of feedstock development from food crops through lignocellulosic residues to algae and waste streams; primary production pathways including microbial fermentation, ring-opening polymerization, and biosynthesis; forming processes from extrusion and injection molding to additive manufacturing; and the mechanical, thermal, and barrier properties that determine application fitness. Particular emphasis is placed on life cycle assessment, which reveals that bioplastics’ climate benefits are conditional on feedstock choice, land-use management, energy source at manufacturing, and end-of-life pathway, and that burden-shifting from greenhouse gas emissions to land use, water consumption, and eutrophication is a systematic risk requiring integrated LCA evaluation rather than single-metric optimization. The review further examines end-of-life recycling, composting, and biodegradation pathways; market applications across packaging, agriculture, automotive, biomedical, and electronics sectors; and the growing role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in accelerating materials design, process optimization, and lifecycle data management. Critical barriers to scale, such as cost premiums of 20–75% over conventional plastics, inadequate composting infrastructure, recycling stream contamination, regulatory fragmentation, and consumer labeling confusion, are systematically analyzed alongside mitigation strategies. The review concludes with a forward-looking discussion of emerging feedstocks, smart and functional bioplastics, and the policy and infrastructure investments required to translate the environmental promise of bio-based polymers into realized circular economy impact.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.3390/macromol6030063first seen 2026-09-04 05:48:45
• openalex https://doi.org/10.3390/macromol6030063first seen 2026-09-07 04:35:54