French chemical recycling firm Carbios says it will be a demonstration plant in Lyon, France, starting later this year.
The first operations are expected to begin in 2021. Carbios has selected TechnipFMC as its collaboration partners on the project. The company will provide the advisory, engineering, procurement and construction supervision services required for the realization of the plant.
The company told Sustainable Plastics that "capacity is not really relevant for a demonstration plant. The sizing of this project aims to provide sufficient data for our first licensees to build 50,000 to 100,000-ton capacity plants."
Carbios said in a news release that the collaboration is an important step in the demonstration of its technology and for its potential future commercialization.
For implementation at large scale, operators must first to gain insights into operational conditions, CEO Jean-Claude Lumaret said. The collaboration with TechnipFMC and Carbios' decision to build a demonstration plant, aims to address this need.
The collaboration "recognizes our technological know-how and leading-edge approach to commercializing new processes, as well as underlining our ambition to provide services in the field of sustainability and the circular economy," according to Alain Francois, managing director of TechnipFMC's Lyon office.
The technology developed by Carbios uses proprietary enzymes to depolymerize waste PET plastics back into the original monomers. These monomers can then be polymerized into a PET material that exhibits the same technical and physical properties as virgin PET.