Sub-Product

PBAT (short for PolyButylene Adipate Terephthalate) is a biodegradable random Copolymer, specifically a Copolyester of Adipic Acid, 1,4-Butanediol and Terephthalic Acid (from Dimethyl Terephthalate).

It is generally marketed as a fully biodegradable alternative to Low Density Polyethylene, having many similar properties including flexibility and resilience, allowing it to be used for many similar uses such as plastic bags and wraps. It is depicted as a Block Co-polymer here due to the common synthetic method of first synthesizing two Copolymer Blocks and then combining them. However, it is important to note that the actual structure of the Polymer is a Random Co-polymer of the Blocks shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1 - TBOT* is used to catalyze the Transesterification of the Polyesters of Adipic acid and DMT to generate the Random Copolymer PBAT

*TBOT: Tetrabutoxytitanium

Source: Wikipedia, PBAT