EPFL startup develops innovative method for recycling PET

DePoly, a startup based at EPFL's Valais-Wallis campus, has developed a chemical-based method for recycling PET containers. Its process, which offers several advantages over existing technology, has just won the company first place at the 2019 >>venture>> competition. While the technology for recycling PET already exists, the systems currently out there have a number of limitations. For example, there is no way to create plastic bottles made entirely of recycled PET - at least some of the raw materials must be new. "That means purchasing them from refineries, which convert oil into ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid, the two compounds needed to make PET," says Samantha Anderson, founder & CEO of DePoly and a PhD student at the Laboratory of Molecular Simulation (LSMO) at EPFL's Valais-Wallis campus. In addition, many PET containers can't be recycled because they contain chemical and food contaminants, additives or dyes - most of these containers end up being incinerated. Recycling through depolymerization DePoly has developed an innovative method that can recycle just about any PET container using a chemical process that breaks down the plastic into its base compounds.