For Carbios, a French green chemistry company that is targeting the development of bio-industrial solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, the recent acknowledgement of its technology, in the form of an article in the scientific journal Nature, more than vindicates the efforts of the past nine years.
Carbios was founded in 2011 by Truffle Capital, a European fund investing in life sciences and information technologies to meet the environmental and sustainable development challenges facing manufacturers.
The article in Nature which appeared under the title “An engineered PET-depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles”, was co-authored by scientists at Carbios and at its academic partner, the Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI).
Prof. Alain Marty, Carbios’ Chief Scientific Officer and co-author of the Nature article said he was proud that Nature, which he called ‘one of the most highly respected scientific journals in the world’, has validated the quality of the research led by Carbios and TBI laboratory scientists in developing a PET recycling enzyme and a revolutionary process.
“The results obtained confirm the industrial and commercial potential of the company’s proprietary process, which will be tested in 2021 in our demonstration plant in the heart of the French Chemical Valley, near Lyon,” he said.
“Carbios is the first company to successfully combine the two scientific worlds of enzymology and plastics”, added Philippe Pouletty, CEO of Truffle Capital and co-founder of Carbios.
PET is one of the most commonly used plastics, finding application in products ranging from polyester clothing fibres, food containers, thermoformed packaging to bottles. While PET recycling is well-established, the main process used is a thermomechanical one, which results in a loss of mechanical properties, say the article’s authors.
In their article, they describe how they engineered an enzyme that is able to biologically depolymerise polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste. According to these researchers, biologically recycled PET that exhibits the same properties as petrochemical PET can be produced from enzymatically depolymerised PET waste. This can then be recycled into new bottles.
Years ago, at the start of these development efforts, the Carbios/TBI team of researchers was able to achieve a degradation yield of PET waste of a mere 1% after a number of weeks. Today, by contrast, this has been increased to 90% in 10 hours – a ‘paradigm shift’ in how effectively PET can be recycled.
The recycling process developed by Carbios is the first of its kind and it represents a major step forward in the transition to a circular economy. It moreover paves the way for recycling PET fibres, another major challenge in guaranteeing a clean and protected environment for future generations. As Saleh Jabarin, Distinguished Professor at the University of Toledo, Ohio and a member of Carbios’ Scientific Committee: said:
“It’s a real breakthrough in the recycling and manufacturing of PET. Thanks to the innovative technology developed by Carbios, the PET industry will become truly circular, which is the goal for all players in this industry, especially brand-owners, PET producers and our civilisation as a whole.”