Carbios launches industrial demo plant for PET chemical recycling 

Clermont-Ferrand, France – French biochemicals company Carbios has successfully launched its industrial demonstration plant in Cataroux,Clermont-Ferrand,  advancing its enzymatic recycling process for PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic waste.

The company has successfully completed first tests at the site, signalling the ‘last stage before commercialisation’ of the ground-breaking C-ZYME technology.

"The demonstration plant includes a 20 cubic-metre depolymerisation reactor capable of processing two tonnes of PET per cycle, which is the equivalent of 100,000 bottles,” said Jean-Claude Lumaret, Carbios' CEO. 

“This is a watershed moment, highlighting how this revolutionary process works on a large scale," he added.

Carbios expects the demo plant to enable the company to complete engineering documents for the process by the end of 2022.

The company aims to scale up the technology with a 40,000-tonne/year plant and expects to operate future factories to be run under licensing agreements.

Carbios’ recycling process uses an enzyme capable of depolymerising the PET contained in various plastics or textiles, including bottles, trays and polyester clothing.

The depolymerised monomers are purified before being repolymerised into PET of comparable quality to virgin PET derived from petrochemicals. 

Earlier this year, French tire giant Michelin announced its collaboration with Carbios to develop new tire fibres from PET plastic waste.

In a 23 April statement, Michelin said it had “successfully tested and applied” Carbios’ enzymatic recycling process in order to create a "high tenacity tire fibre that meets its technical requirements." 

The French group aims to source 40% of its tire materials sustainably (from renewable or recycled origin) by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

According to Michelin, 1.6 billion car tires are sold worldwide annually, consuming 800,000 tonnes of PET per year.

“When applied to Michelin – this represents nearly 3 billion plastic bottles per year that could be recycled into technical fibres for use in the company’s tires,” it added.