CO2BioClean has just been featured in the leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung following the manufacture of a frisbee from bioplastic produced by the company.

You can read the article (in German) HERE.

English translation:

A toy made from greenhouse gases

ESCHBORN start-up presents product made from CO₂-produced bioplastic

The CO₂ footprint of a product usually describes the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during its production. With the frisbee that Josef Glass is holding, it’s different: CO₂ was used as a raw material for it, meaning it’s captured. This is made possible by a plant that has been operating in the Höchst Industrial Park for about a year. The Eschborn-based start-up CO2BioClean converts climate-damaging CO₂ into a biodegradable plastic, polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), in this pilot plant.

The founders of CO2Bioclean, Fabiana Fantinel and Alessandro Carfagnini, want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of durable plastic waste with their technology. The frisbee made from their bioplastic is intended to demonstrate what is possible:

According to CO2Bioclean board member Glass, the starting material for the production of the 40-gram disc was approximately 100 grams of carbon dioxide. “The manufacturing process binds more CO2 than the product ultimately weighs.”

The greenhouse gas is fed to bacteria in the startup’s facility, which convert it into the polymer PHA. A process that also occurs in nature. Although the PHA still had to be shaped into a frisbee, according to Glaß, this was done in a 3D printer powered by green electricity, making it virtually climate-neutral. The frisbee is being touted by the toy company as the “world’s first toy made from CO₂”. Manufacturer Bioplay, a company in which Glass is also active, has advertised the product. It is scheduled to be released at the end of the month, but initially only in a very limited run of 100 units.

Less high-profile, but more promising in the long term, are other applications: CO2Bioclean’s PHA powder can be processed into films and thus also used for biodegradable packaging. The material is already being tested in the form of tree sleeves, which have been used for a year to protect seedlings in a forest in Bavaria. The idea: When the young trees grow and eventually burst the sleeves, the remaining pieces should gradually decompose.

For the construction of the pilot plant, CO2Bioclean received financial support from, among others, the state of Hesse, the EU, and the Austrian company Ghazan Commodities. According to Fantinel, a new financing round is planned for January, with the company hoping to raise eight million euros from investors. The CO2Bioclean team consists of around ten people, and the plant in Höchst is currently being expanded.