Chemical recycling of plastics (pyrolysis, solvolysis, depolymerisation back to monomers)

Industry is the backbone of modern civilization, but it's also one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing steel, cement, chemicals, and plastics doesn't just burn fossil fuels for energy — these processes often require fossil fuels as raw ingredients or release CO2 as an unavoidable part of the chemistry itself.

This creates a massive challenge. We can't simply swap in renewable electricity and call it solved. Heavy industry needs fundamentally different approaches: new chemistries, new materials, new ways of thinking about how we make things. The scale is enormous — industry accounts for about a quarter of global emissions — but so is the opportunity to transform how we build our world.

The chemical industry doesn't just burn fossil fuels for energy — it uses oil and gas as the actual building blocks for making plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and thousands of other products. Petrochemicals are the foundation of modern life, from the synthetic fabrics we wear to the packaging that keeps food fresh.

This creates a fundamental challenge: even if we had unlimited clean electricity, we'd still need carbon and hydrogen atoms to build these molecules. The industry needs entirely new feedstocks and processes, not just cleaner energy. Chemicals and plastics account for about 14% of oil demand globally, and that's growing as other sectors electrify.

Unlike mechanical recycling that just melts and reshapes plastic, chemical recycling breaks plastic down into its original chemical building blocks. These can then be used to make new plastic that's identical to virgin material. Technologies include pyrolysis (heating plastic without oxygen), solvolysis (using solvents to break chemical bonds), and enzymatic processes. This could handle mixed and contaminated plastics that can't be mechanically recycled.