Inside the lab making enzymes for next-gen bio-plastics

STORY: What if we could get the plastic products we're so used to having, without the pollution that comes with it?

One London-based startup says that's possible and its system could make fossil fuels a thing of the past.

Grant Aarons is the CEO and co-founder of FabricNano - which specializes in cell-free biomanufacturing.

"We all know that we have a problem with materials that we use every day. We have 8 billion metric tonnes of plastic waste that have accumulated in the oceans for 8 billion people."

FabricNano's process is a closely guarded secret - but it doesn't use the oil and gas the chemical industry currently relies on.

Instead, it uses proteins to manufacture any chemical required, including environmentally friendly bioplastic.

(Grant Aarons, CEO and Co-Founder of FabricNano)

"Proteins are these beautiful machinery that are capable of doing chemistry that we find all over nature and all within biology. Essentially, a protein can do any material production and any chemical production that we can think of today.”

The process of using proteins to create chemicals isn't new.

But FabricNano is aiming to design enzymes that can survive in an industrial production process.

To do so, its teamed up with Sumitomo Chemical America - a plastic and petrochemicals producer.

(Grant Aarons, CEO and Co-Founder of FabricNano)

"The chemical industry can be our friend if we enable them with technology that is a drop-in replacement for how they currently make chemicals today. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to enable this industry to help fight climate change as fast as possible using a technology that can be scaled exponentially quick and that is a cell-free bio-manufacturing technology that we're building."

But, it may still be a while before we see industrial plastics made through bio-manufacturing.