Quantumzyme receives IISc grant to sustainably degrade plastic

Using its technology — QZyme WorkbenchTM — the company aims to develop the first prototype by the end of the year. Naveen Kulkarni, the CEO of Quantumzyme, said that they would seek additional funding from the agencies for this project, which is projected to cost around Rs. 3.2 crore. They aim to develop an affordable solution at a commercial scale with the launch of this project.

Despite the widespread ban on plastics, the current market for recycling plastic is estimated to be worth US $35 billion on an annual basis with 5% compounded growth. A 20% replacement of the same with a greener option would cost about $7 billion a year.

QZyme WorkbenchTM is a proprietary technology that finds and creates enzymes for “greening” chemical reactions for PET (plastic) and a variety of other industries, including pharmaceutical, fine chemicals, textiles, flavours and fragrances, and more.

Waste made of plastic and PET has a negative impact on human health and is a major cause of environmental pollution. Traditional chemical processes require high-purity recovered PET that is more expensive, less readily available, and process-intensive (e.g., temperature, catalysts, and pressure).

The enzyme degradation method, however, enables the selective conversion of impure PET streams to pure monomers. Existing enzymes can only degrade a small amount of PET and require high temperatures.

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