Gevo and Coca-Cola Sign Agreement for Development and Commercialisation of Renewable Plastic Bottles

US-based renewable chemicals and biofuels company, Gevo has signed an agreement with the Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) for the creation of renewable para-xylene from isobutanol. This will help in the development of the PlantBottle packaging made from the plant-based materials for Coca-Cola.

Both the companies will work together to develop an integrated system for the production of renewable para-xylene and upgrade the technology from the lab scale to the commercial scale. This is a major step in guiding the beverage companies to avoid fossil fuel-based packaging and adopt a different packaging alternative created from renewable resources.

Gevo was chosen by Coca-Cola after a detailed research on the leading technologies that were available around the world. According to the CEO of Gevo, Patrick Gruber, Coca-Cola is in a better position to influence change in the packaging industry due to its market leadership. According to the Vice President Commercial Product Supply for Coca-Cola, Rick Frazier, the technology owned by Gevo has the potential to create biobased materials on a commercial scale over the next few years. PET has a global market of 54 Mt worth $100 billion with plastic bottles taking up 30% of the market. Para-xylene is a major raw material used for the production of PET bottles. Gevo has also previously announced that it will supply lab-scale quantities of renewable para-xylene to the Japanese chemical company, Toray. Toray has used para-xylene from Gevo to develop the fibres and PETs.