CAR­BIOS Announces the Pub­lic­a­tion of an Art­icle on its Enzymat­ic Reyc­ling Tech­no­logy in the Pres­ti­gi­ous Sci­entif­ic Journ­al Nature

CAR­BIOS (Euronext Growth Par­is: ALCRB), a com­pany pion­eer­ing new bio-indus­tri­al solu­tions to rein­vent the life­cycle of plastic and tex­tile poly­mers, announces the pub­lic­a­tion of an art­icle in the pres­ti­gi­ous sci­entif­ic journ­al Nature, entitled ​“An engin­eered PET-depoly­merase to break down and recycle plastic bottles”. The art­icle is co-authored by sci­ent­ists at Car­bios and at the Company’s renowned aca­dem­ic part­ner, the Toulouse Bio­tech­no­logy Insti­tute [A mixed research unit INSA Toulouse, INRAE, CNRS] (TBI). The art­icle describes the devel­op­ment of a nov­el enzyme, which can bio­lo­gic­ally depoly­mer­ize all poly­ethyl­ene tere­ph­thal­ate (PET) plastic waste, fol­lowed by an extremely effi­cient recyc­ling into new bottles. PET is the most com­mon ther­mo­plastic poly­mer and is used to man­u­fac­ture bottles, poly­es­ter cloth­ing fibers, food con­tain­ers, and vari­ous ther­mo­formed pack­aging and com­pon­ents. Car­bios’ recyc­ling pro­cess, the first of its kind, ini­ti­ates a real trans­ition to a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and can bet­ter pre­vent plastic pol­lu­tion from harm­ing our oceans and plan­et. This innov­at­ive tech­no­logy also paves the way for recyc­ling PET fibers, anoth­er major chal­lenge in guar­an­tee­ing a clean and pro­tec­ted envir­on­ment for future gen­er­a­tions. Prof. Alain Marty, Car­bios’ Chief Sci­entif­ic Officer and co-author of the Nature art­icle says: ​“I am very proud that Nature, 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.” Soph­ie Duquesne, INRAE Research­er: ​“For any research­er, see­ing its work recog­nized by the pres­ti­gi­ous journ­al Nature is a true achieve­ment. I am very proud of the work accom­plished by the research­ers at TBI and Car­bios, whose col­lab­or­at­ive efforts have led to the devel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able solu­tion to the end of life of plastics.” Dr. Saleh Jabar­in, Dis­tin­guished Pro­fess­or at The Uni­ver­sity of Toledo, Ohio and a mem­ber of Car­bios’ Sci­entif­ic Com­mit­tee: ​“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 civil­iz­a­tion as a whole.” Ber­trand Pic­card, Founder and Pres­id­ent of the Sol­ar Impulse Found­a­tion: ​“I am very pleased that the sci­entif­ic com­munity recog­nizes one of the solu­tions labelled by the Sol­ar Impulse Found­a­tion as a fin­an­cially prof­it­able solu­tion to pro­tect the envir­on­ment. The use of such tech­no­logy is as logic­al as it is eco­lo­gic­al!” Nature, the highest Impact Factor sci­entif­ic journ­al, recog­nizes the ground-break­ing qual­ity of the enzymat­ic engin­eer­ing research being done by Car­bios and TBI, that is pav­ing the way to vir­tu­ous man­age­ment of plastic waste. ​“Car­bios is the first com­pany to suc­cess­fully com­bine the two sci­entif­ic worlds of enzymo­logy and plastics”, as Dr. Phil­ippe Pouletty, CEO of Truffle Cap­it­al and Co-founder of Car­bios, com­ments. By lever­aging many years of exper­i­ence with a world-renowned team, Car­bios and TBI are proud to have been able to increase the degrad­a­tion yield of PET waste to 90% in 10 hours, a sig­ni­fic­ant upswing from the ini­tial degrad­a­tion yield of 1% after sev­er­al weeks. This paradigm shift in how effect­ively PET can be recycled, is lead­ing toward a future cir­cu­lar eco­nomy tech­no­logy applic­able to all PET waste, which Car­bios is proud to be spear­head­ing. Source: CAR­BIOS, press release, 08.04.2020