The US Patent and Trademark Office (Alexandria, Virginia; www.uspto.gov) has granted another patent to French chemistry company Carbios (Saint-Beauzire; www.carbios.fr) for its proprietary PET recycling technology – see Plasteurope.com of 04.04.2019. The patent, which is Carbios’ second in the US, protects its intellectual property rights through 2033. It recognises Carbios for inventing a proprietary method of recycling complex plastics, including coloured, opaque and multilayer products containing a mix of PET and at least one other component, for example polyolefins, vinyl polymers, rubber, fibres, paper, aluminium, starch or wood.

“This patent confirms Carbios’ unique expertise and leadership in developing an infinite recycling solution for all kinds of PET waste, particularly types which are barely treatable using traditional recycling processes,” said Jean-Claude Lumaret, CEO of Carbios. He added that demand for technology to facilitate a circular economy was growing rapidly.

The French company explained that current thermo-mechanical recycling processes cannot handle multilayer plastic products where mono-material waste is required, noting too that traditional pre-treatments such as sorting are unable to separate PET from other components. Carbios said its technology overcomes these problems by its capability to depolymerise PET regardless of the composition of mixed PET products or the presence of other components/polymers. In addition, the process can recover the raw materials PTA and MEG along with separating and purifying them for use in other applications.

To date, Carbios owns 116 titles around the world, representing 30 patent families. Six of these protect its proprietary recycling process in full, and five are related to the enzymes that degrade PET.