LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology could see new applications in the beauty industry soon. The carbon capture and transformation company has partnered with fragrance and beauty ingredients manufacturer Givaudan to develop new generations of sustainable ingredients.

With over 15 years scale up experience, LanzaTech’s approach to carbon transformation is based on the conversion of emissions to ethanol and the subsequent conversion of ethanol to the building blocks necessary to make a wide range of consumer goods, such as laundry detergent, clothing, shoes, and food packaging. In addition, thanks to its synthetic biology and modelling capabilities, LanzaTech can introduce new pathways into their biocatalyst to produce a variety of different chemicals through this process. Multiple commercial facilities are already licensing LanzaTech’s technology, converting various waste carbon sources to ethanol, including the conversion of industrial emissions in China, thanks to the power of industrial biology and a proprietary biocatalyst.

The research collaboration with Givaudan is one that is expected to leverage this synthetic biology capability and go beyond the production of ethanol, with the companies working together to establish novel pathways to create sustainable fragrance ingredients used across the Givaudan portfolio.

Both companies have been longstanding members of the Renewable Carbon Initiative, an organisation whose goal is to support and speed up the transition from fossil carbon to renewable carbon for all organic chemicals and materials.

LanzaTech has previously joined forces with L’Oréal to create a plastic bottle made from renewable carbon [1] and, more recently, with Coty to replace the ethanol used in their fragrances with recycled carbon.