Toray Produces Fully Renewable PET Fiber Derived from Gevo's Biobased Para-xylene
Toray Industries, Inc. has succeeded in producing laboratory-scale samples of the world's first fully renewable biobased PET fiber by using fully renewable biobased PET derived from biobased para-xylene from Gevo, Inc., one of the leading companies in renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels. Gevo has succeeded in converting isobutanol, produced from biomass by employing its own highly effective production method that uses synthetic biology, to synthesize para-xylene employing conventional chemical process used in commercial operations. Toray used terephthalic acid synthesized from Gevo's biobased para-xylene and commercially available renewable mono ethylene glycol (MEG) as raw materials, and successfully produced the PET samples by applying a new technology and PET polymerization in June this year. This biobased PET has exhibited properties equivalent to petro-based PET in laboratory conditions. Toray has also succeeded in the production of a fiber using this fully rene