Epoch Biodesign Ltd

**Problems:** Globally, 2.145 million tonnes of Nylon-6 and Nylon-6,6 polymers are used for fashion clothing and other clothes textiles each year. The manufacturing processes used to generate Nylon-6 and Nylon-6,6 polymers cause significant environmental harm, from both polymer production, as well as creation of the constituent monomers: * Nylon-6 manufac...

**Challenge:** Nylon-6,6 is produced by the esterification of adipic acid (ADP) and hexamethylenediamine (HMDA) monomers via energy intensive industrial processes (consuming between 80-60 MJ per tonne Nylon-6,6 manufactured). Annual global Nylon-6,6 manufacturing releases ~12 million tonne CO2 and ~2 million tonnes of nitrous oxide (NOx). 75% of the world...

High-density polyethylene \[HDPE\], low-density polyethylene \[LDPE\], and polypropylene \[PP\] are some of the most widely used consumer polyolefin plastics both globally and in the UK. Standard physico-chemical recycling methods for HDPE/LDPE/PP diminishes the quality of these materials between recycling rounds. When degraded beyond re-use, the waste is...

no public description

**PROBLEM:** Adipic acid (ADP; aka hexanedioic acid) is an important chemical. It is used for manufacturing many common materials including polyurethanes, plasticisers used in PVC production, and Nylon 6,6 (which consumes ~75% of all ADP made). ADP is manufactured via a multi-step reaction: * Benzene is reduced to cyclohexane at high-pressures and high te...

**PROBLEM** Plastic packaging, and in particular plastic film, can pose significant challenges to recyclers. It is a major problem as it is often co-laminated, containing additives, and contaminated. It can also damage sorting machinery. The widespread collection and reprocessing of plastic film in the UK (and in most developed countries) is limited; just...

The accumulation of plastics in the environment, especially in rivers and oceans, is a massive and well-known problem. Most of these plastics have purely alkyl chain backbones, which makes them recalcitrant to biodegradation. The aim of this project is to develop the high-level, secretory, recombinant production of an enzyme that we have discovered and pa...

The accumulation of plastics in the environment especially in rivers and oceans is a massive and well-known problem. Most of these plastics are highly recalcitrant to biodegradation, and therefore persist for hundreds of years. The aim of this project is to characterise an enzyme capable of degrading recalcitrant plastics, and address various steps of ind...