Gen­o­mat­ica Hits Industry-First Mile­stone in Nylon Sustainability

Eighty years after nylon’s first com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion, clean man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­no­logy lead­er Gen­o­mat­ica achieved a new mile­stone for the mater­i­al — its pro­duc­tion of the world’s first renew­ably-sourced ton of the key ingredi­ent for nylon‑6, made from plants instead of crude oil. Nylon, the first totally syn­thet­ic fiber to be made into con­sumer products includ­ing appar­el and car­pet, is respons­ible for an estim­ated 60 mil­lion tons of green­house gas emis­sions per year through tra­di­tion­al pro­duc­tion which begins with crude oil. Genomatica’s innov­a­tion, along­side part­ner and major European nylon pro­du­cer Aquafil, will pro­duce 100% renew­ably-sourced nylon that deliv­ers equi­val­ent per­form­ance to the con­ven­tion­al nylon that touches mil­lions of people’s lives, but with lower envir­on­ment­al impact. This bio-based nylon has the poten­tial to reduce green­house gas emis­sions in a $10 bil­lion glob­al industry that pro­duces over five mil­lion tons of nylon‑6 per year, to make car­pet, cloth­ing, car interi­ors, engin­eered plastics and food pack­aging. ​“DuPont’s land­mark pro­duc­tion of nylon eighty years ago intro­duced a highly ver­sat­ile staple mater­i­al to the appar­el, tex­tile and engin­eer­ing product indus­tries,” said Chris­tophe Schilling, CEO of Gen­o­mat­ica. ​“It’s a ter­rif­ic mater­i­al, and now, with the power of bio­tech­no­logy, we can rein­vent where it comes from. This is a major step for­ward in offer­ing a new, more sus­tain­able future with a bet­ter nylon for the full range of indus­tries it serves.” With the rise of fast fash­ion and the ongo­ing demand for nylon-based products, more sus­tain­ably sourced nylon ingredi­ents are essen­tial to redu­cing the industry’s envir­on­ment­al impacts. The Ellen MacAr­thur Found­a­tion echoed this sen­ti­ment in its 2017 report: A New Tex­tiles Eco­nomy, which cited mak­ing effect­ive use of resources and mov­ing to renew­able ingredi­ents as one of four core ambi­tions to real­ize this vis­ion of a new glob­al tex­tiles sys­tem. Genomatica’s tech­no­logy to make a nat­ur­ally sourced nylon, recently recog­nized as a spe­cial men­tion in TIME’s Best Inven­tions, is made pos­sible by fer­ment­a­tion — sim­il­ar to mak­ing beer. The com­pany engin­eered a microor­gan­ism and pro­duc­tion pro­cess that fer­ments the sug­ars found in plants to make the chem­ic­al inter­me­di­ate for nylon‑6. This mile­stone marks Genomatica’s suc­cess­ful scal­ing of this pro­cess to pro­duce one ton of the inter­me­di­ate. The chem­ic­al is then con­ver­ted into nylon‑6 poly­mer chips and yarn by Aquafil in Slov­e­nia. For more info, see Genomatica’s ​“remak­ing nylon” video. Glob­al part­ners have played a key role in accel­er­at­ing Genomatica’s bio-nylon pro­gram. Aquafil was the first to join Genomatica’s pro­gram, bring­ing fund­ing sup­port and nylon-related chem­ic­al, qual­ity and mar­ket expert­ise. Addi­tion­ally, Pro­ject EFFECT­IVE, a con­sor­ti­um with 12 part­ners includ­ing major brands like H&M, Vaude, Carvico and Bals­an, was formed to drive the pro­duc­tion of more sus­tain­able bio-based fibers for widely-used con­sumer products made from renew­able feed­stocks. ​“Ninety five per­cent of Amer­ic­ans think sus­tain­ab­il­ity is a good goal and we’re see­ing con­sumers demand more sus­tain­able products,” Schilling went on to say. ​“Our tech­no­logy provides brands with a solu­tion to meet this con­sumer demand for bet­ter-sourced products.” Source: Gen­o­mat­ica, press release, 29.01.2020