Carbios launched construction of industrial demonstration plant for the enzymatic PET recycling
Carbios, a company pioneering new bio-industrial solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, announced the launch of the construction of its industrial demonstration plant for the enzymatic recycling of PET plastic. The demonstration plant is located near Lyon, in France’s Chemistry Valley. Carbios is supported and advised by TechnipFMC for the engineering and construction of this demonstration plant.
The objective of the plant is to generate technical data that will allow Carbios to define the main parameters for each step of the enzymatic recycling process, on a sufficient scale to be able to plan the operation of future industrial units. The first phase of the system operations is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2021. This will allow Carbios to establish the complete engineering documents for the process, from waste to monomers, for the construction and implementation of the first industrial unit for a licensee (estimated capacity between 50 and 100 kt per year).
The demonstration plant will validate the technical, environmental, and economic performance of Carbios’ technology. It will also produce batches of monomers for technical and regulatory validation of recycled PET by future licensees.
Martin Stephan, Chief Operating Officer of Carbios, comments: “Our technology is able to meet a very strong market demand, particularly from the brand-owners of our Consortium, which include companies like L’Oréal, Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo, and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe. Each of these, and many other global multi-national firms, have made ambitious commitments towards sustainable development. This demonstration plant will be a showcase site to validate the economic and technical performance of our process and to ensure the training of our future licensees.”
