BASF Venture Capital (BVC), subsidiary of BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has invested an undisclosed sum in young, Swiss recycling company DePoly (Sion; www.depoly.co).

BVC co-led DePoly’s CHF 12.3 mn (EUR 12.5 mn) seed financing round along with Wingman Ventures, with the participation of Beiersdorf, Infinity Recycling, CIECH Ventures, Angel Invest, and others.

Related: PET/polyester recycling must scale up to meet demand

The goal is to further develop the process for the chemical recycling of polyester.

The start-up, founded in 2020, has developed a procedure to ensure the processing of all polyester waste – PET bottle, fibre, or fabric – without prior sorting, washing, and separation of other plastics. The depolymerisation process via hydrolysis should also be able to run at room temperature and under normal pressure. The end products from the processing of household and industrial waste are PET precursors PTA and MEG.

The proceeds of the financing round will enable DePoly to accelerate the scale-up and development of its depolymerisation process, leading to the building of a demonstration plant in Switzerland, expected to be operational in 2024, according to DePoly CEO and co-founder Samantha Anderson.

The company built and operates a pilot plant that processes a capacity of 50 t/y of these complex PET or polyester plastics streams, showcasing the scope and flexibility of how the technology works for various industries – from post-consumer packaging to textiles, fashion, and post-industrial streams. Currently, the company says it is working on building a new showcase plant with a capacity of 500 t/y to demonstrate the technology at a commercial scale by 2024.