The demonstration-scale results move Carbios closer to licensing enzymatic fibre-to-fibre recycling for complex polyester waste, but commercial economics and feedstock preparation remain critical.
French biotechnology company Carbios has expanded its technology-licensing offer to the textile industry after completing 100 production batches at its industrial demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand.
The company says its enzymatic depolymerisation process achieved more than 95% conversion within 24 hours when treating complex post-consumer textile waste under conditions representative of industrial operation. The results reportedly produced monomers of a quality equivalent to those recovered from PET packaging, supporting their reuse in virgin-quality polyester.
Polyester opens a larger market
Carbios has been adapting its process since 2025 to handle textile waste containing PET polyester fibres. The company estimates global polyester consumption in textile applications at approximately 67 million tonnes annually—nearly twice the size of the PET packaging market and about two-thirds of total PET consumption.
This substantially enlarges the addressable market for a technology initially developed around bottles and packaging. It also targets one of fashion’s most difficult circularity gaps: recovering polyester from dyed, finished and multi-component garments rather than from relatively clean packaging streams.
Licensing becomes the scale model
The 100-batch milestone is important because Carbios does not intend to build every recycling plant itself. Its strategy is to license the process to industrial partners, enabling regional facilities to use Carbios technology, enzymes and engineering specifications.
Demonstrating reproducible results across repeated batches is therefore essential. Prospective licensees will require evidence that the process can tolerate variable waste, maintain conversion yields and consistently produce purified terephthalic acid and monoethylene glycol suitable for new PET.
Pre-processing remains decisive
Enzymatic depolymerisation addresses the polyester fraction, but commercial plants will still need dependable collection, sorting and preparation systems. Garments containing elastane, polyamide, cotton, coatings, zippers and other contaminants must be processed without undermining yield or product purity.
The next milestones will be signed textile licences, disclosed plant capacities and independently verified operating costs. Carbios has strengthened the technical case for fibre-to-fibre polyester recycling; the commercial test is whether licensees can secure sufficient feedstock and produce recycled PET at a price brands and mills will accept.
