Carbios’ enzymatic technology yields competitive PLA depolymerization process

According to the company, it has successfully managed to depolymerize 90% of polylactic acid (PLA) material – a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources – in only 48 hours, with the help of its proprietary enzymatic process.

The enzyme patented by Carbios induces the catalytic depolymerization of PLA waste at a rate that comes close to industrial performances. Such catalytic activity was tested on consumer goods made of PLA, including cups, trays, plastic films and flatware, whose semi-crystalline properties make it difficult for the enzyme to operate. These results mark the beginning of the production scale-up of Carbios’ bio-recycling process, allowing the company to contemplate a faster manufacturing process than had been initially scheduled

The exceptional results were obtained by the team from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in Toulouse, France (Toulouse White Biotechnology (TWB) and the Systems Biology and Process Engineering Laboratory (LISBP)) both of which are Carbios’ partners on the Thanaplast project, a private-public consortium led by Carbios, in which the company is collaborating with a network of corporate and academic partners. Thanaplast is seeking to create industrial value from plastics that have come to the end of their useful lives. The consortium aims to leverage biological catalysts with exceptional properties (e.g. resistance to heat, extreme pH and specific chemical reactions) and to develop and patent innovative technologies for producing, transforming and recycling a broad range of plastic materials.
Ultimately, the goal is to develop effective biobased industrial processes that (as an alternative to conventional chemistry) add value to plastic waste and enable the production of economically competitive biosourced polymers.

“These unprecedented results validate Carbios’ strategy and the company’s ambition to manufacture its patented environmentally friendly PLA depolymerization method,” said Jean-Claude Lumaret, CEO of Carbios. “By breathing new life into the plastic waste industry, they confirm Carbios’ position as a major player in the circular economy.”

The results obtained by Carbios with PLA will enable the company to expand its technology to other plastic polymers, including PET and PTT, the latter of which is the main component of carpets. (KL)

http://www.carbios.fr

(Image: pre pilot installation Carbios. All images taken from Carbios website.)