PET | CHEMICAL RECYCLING
Stephan says Carbios expects to sell its first licence possibly around the end of 2022 with production using the technology then beginning in 2024/25. Scientists at Carbios and at the company’s academic partner, the Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, say that with a high ratio of aromatic terephthalate units – which reduce chain mobility – PET is extremely difficult to hydrolyse. “Carbios’ improved PET hydrolase ultimately achieves, over 10 hours, a minimum of 90% PET depolymerisation into monomers,” they say. Stephan reckons there is potential to go even faster. Carbios has the most contamination-tolerant
process available for PET chemical recycling, reckons Stephan. “The enzymes are highly specific to PET and PBT, so if there are impurities, nothing happens,” he says. Swiss company Gr3n has another PET depoly-
merisation technology. A demonstration plant should be fully operating early next year. “In the meantime, we closed a Series A investment round of about €7.5m, with investors like Chevron Technology Ventures and Standex, among others,” says Fabio Silvestri, Head of Marketing and Business Development. “This round of financing will allow us to grow the company further and ultimately move from a start-up phase to bringing our solution to market,” says Maurizio Crippa, Gr3n founder and CEO. It is hoped that the first industrial plant, with a capacity of 30,000 tonnes/yr, will start up before the end of 2024. “We are also working with a lot of brands,” says
Silvestri, noting that the company has had confirma- tion that its technology can depolymerise textiles. Gr3n has an MOU with Kolon Industries to
accelerate the commercialisation and the imple- mentation of its technology throughout Asia, and to expand Kolon’s eco-friendly plastic business. Ioniqa, a spinoff from the Eindhoven University
of Technology in the Netherlands, has a 10,000 tonnes/yr plant producing BHT monomer from bottles, which it currently supplies exclusively to Indorama. Maarten Stolk, the company’s Business Developer, says that it plans also to use fibre as a feedstock. “The factory is now running. It has not yet reached full capacity, owing to some modifications made to the original design, among other things.” The company is currently in discussions with an engineering firm which would construct plants so it can sell licensed technology packages. Stolk says that Ioniqa has received interest from companies around the world, especially in Europe and Asia. He says that Ioniqa wants to sell several 50,000 tonne units on an annual basis. Stolk says that textile feedstock will be a focus point for the coming years. The company wants to make the technology even more feedstock-robust, which will give it more market potential. The PET market is currently overheated and it is difficult to find even low quality material, Stolk says. “Demand has gone up a lot and recycling capacity has not been able to keep up.” In June, Loop Industries in Terrebonne, Que-
bec, Canada, announced a strategic partnership and equity investment from SK Global Chemical.
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Above: The Carbios demonstration plant in Clermont- Ferrand, France
IMAGE: CARBIOS
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