TWB & PILI partners for the production of dyes

PILI, company specialised in the production of renewable and ecological dyes, has started a collaboration with TWB and chosen to move into TWB’s premises in order to benefit from its structures, equipment, and skills. The aim is to reach the pilot scale of the industrial manufacturing process for a first dye. PILI plans to market its first dye (blue) within the next 3 years.

The R&D project, which stems from La Paillasse – first French community biotechnology laboratory – aims to outgrow petrochemistry and agro-industry for producing the dyes. It involves using the natural capability of some microorganisms (such as soil bacteria or fungi) to produce pigments from renewable resources, and optimising the production.

After a proof of concept obtained in 2013 and the creation of the PILI company in 2015, the next stage is the move to the pre-industrial pilot scale (300 litre bioreactor) of the production process for a blue dye. PILI is today negotiating with several industrial partners in the ink, textile (world market of more than 2 million tonnes representing 5.5 billion euros) and cosmetic fields.

TWB provides PILI with all the elements necessary for its development and for the upscaling of its process by putting at its disposal the laboratories, equipment, and expertise of all its teams as well as those of the LISBP (Laboratoire d’Ingénierie des Systèmes Biologiques et des Procédés – Toulouse, France) and CRITT- Bioindustries in the fields of fermentation, optimisation of processes and bacterial strains, as well as production scale-up. Within the partnership framework, three PILI researchers work full-time in a dedicated space.

Thanks to this partnership formula, TWB offers start-ups such as PILI an infrastructure that can support the first industrial feasibility tests that subsequently enable them to choose and invest in the equipment of their own production apparatus (see EnobraQ and TOLERYS).

More information: Press release