**1. Introduction**

Polylactide or poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is the front runner in the emerging biopolymer market with the best availability and the most attractive cost structure [1]. Although PLA existed for several decades, its use has been limited to biomedical applications due its high cost. However, in the new century processing of PLA has been developed in the industry in a large‐scale production promoting its commercialization as a commodity plastic [2].

To date, PLA is one of the most used biodegradable polymers in the field of biomedical applications and eco‐friendly industrial production. A clear advantage of this polymer is its possibility of polymerization coming from renewable resources as starch, but it is not the only one: stiffness of polylactides are similar to some commodity polymers as polyethylene,

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

polypropylene and polystyrene [3] and products derived from its degradation process are nontoxic for the human body and also do not leave any footprint in the landfills [4].
