Plastic has a recycling drawback. Solely about 9% of plastic will get recycled, and a majority of that waste comes from single-use objects like plastic grocery luggage. It’s partly a design drawback — they’re made to be discarded. But it surely’s additionally a expertise drawback as a result of recycling such movies isn’t straightforward, and the outcomes normally aren’t nice.
Novoloop says it has developed a method to take these troublesome plastics and switch them into one thing different firms really wish to purchase.
The California-based startup not too long ago accomplished a take a look at run of its demonstration plant that constantly upcycles waste plastic. The plant is able to cranking out as much as 70 metric tons of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) per yr that can be utilized in all the things from sneakers to automobile seats. Demand has been robust sufficient that the corporate is getting ready plans for an even bigger facility.
“We’re bought out. Actually each time we make one thing, we’re bought out,” Miranda Wang, co-founder and CEO of Novoloop, informed TechCrunch.
On the heels of its demo manufacturing run, Novoloop has raised a $21 million Collection B to finalize the design of its first commercial-scale plant and start development, the corporate completely informed TechCrunch. The brand new spherical was led by Taranis, an funding fund owned by oil-and-gas firm Perenco, with participation from Valo Ventures and Store Restricted.
The corporate doesn’t have a location picked out for its commercial-scale plant, nevertheless it’s trying to construct alongside an present chemical plant which may have additional land and utilities out there. The opposite firm would possibly personal and function the ability, with Novoloop supplying the method and advertising and marketing know-how.
“Typically it’s exhausting for them to return throughout progress alternatives,” Wang stated. “It is a approach for them to entry that progress alternative without having to study a completely completely different market that they should promote issues into as a result of we’re caring for advertising and marketing and gross sales and the expertise.”
Novoloop beforehand raised a $21 million Series A, which helped the corporate refine its course of to the purpose the place operating shoe producer On used its upcycled materials for the tread of its Cloudprime sneaker.
The startup’s upcycled materials, which it calls Lifecycled TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane), is made by breaking down polyethylene plastic into its primary constructing blocks, referred to as monomers. From there, it synthesizes new polymers which might be extra worthwhile than the preliminary polyethylene. The ensuing materials is costlier than virgin, however “inside vary,” Wang stated.
Wang added that Novoloop’s expertise with TPU has led the corporate to a different enterprise line, mechanically recycling TPU scraps from manufacturing unit flooring and including “efficiency enhancers” to make it carry out extra like virgin materials.
When it got here time to construct the demonstration plant, Novoloop priced out a facility within the U.S. But it surely rapidly settled on India, the place Aether Industries hadn’t simply constructed a pilot plant however “a plant of pilots,” Wang stated. “They’ve a plant of only a complete bunch of pilots.”
Aether’s expertise with small-scale chemical manufacturing vegetation — coupled with its potential to reuse tools from dismantled pilots — implies that constructing and working Novoloop’s plant would price 10 instances lower than merely constructing the small facility within the U.S.
“That’s an surroundings we don’t have right here,” Wang stated.