28
2022
Innovation
Novoloop aims to ‘double the
circular economy potential’
Canadian start-up company Novoloop is claiming its ‘breakthrough’ accelerated thermal oxidative
decomposition (Atod) technology harvests carbon-rich feedstock from polyethylene scrap to produce
materials with the same quality as virgin plastic. ‘We’re pushing forward polymer chemistry while
fighting today’s biggest environmental challenges,’ says company ceo Miranda Wang.
T
he story of Novoloop started many years
ago. ‘When I was a teenager growing up
in Vancouver, I had the opportunity to
visit a waste transfer facility,’ Wang recalls.
‘During the tour, it dawned on both my co-
founder Jeanny Yao and me that our world’s
plastic waste problem was a lot bigger than we
ever anticipated. The high school field trip in-
spired both of us to engage in a science com-
petition – the Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge
– through which we discovered soil bacteria
that can eat plasticisers. Our win in the sci-
ence fair led to us being scouted by the TED
2013 Conference, where we gave a talk about
plastic pollution and a potential solution to
decompose it. This happened when we were
freshmen in college.’
The ambitious duo started hearing from
people around the world about innovative
ideas for plastics recycling. In 2015, Wang and
Yao founded Novoloop (formerly BioCellec-
tion) to create a solution. ‘We visited waste
management plants across America and re-
alised that polyethylene, especially film, was
extremely difficult to recycle once contami-
nated. We also realised that chemical methods
– as opposed to biochemical methods – were
more scalable at breaking down plastics.’
Over the past six years, the two women
have built a team of scientists who share
their passion for this problem and created
Novoloop’s current technology. ‘In short, we
feel there was never a choice for us not be-
ing in the recycling sector,’ Wang says with
a smile.
A patented process
‘Our flagship product, XIRC, is designed
to help planet-conscious brands accelerate the
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