EU project aims to produce ethylene from industrial CO₂ waste
In Switzerland, platform chemicals such as ethylene are most often made from fossil source materials and generate considerable CO₂ emissions. The EU-funded project REACT, in which Empa is one of the partners, aims to instead produce ethylene from industrial CO₂ waste, thus closing the carbon loop. The consortium is developing a functional electrolysis system for the conversion of CO₂ to ethylene.
More than 95% of ethylene is currently produced through fossil-based steam cracking processes that generate approximately 260 million tons of CO₂ emissions each year. An EU project with Empa involvement aims to transform this carbon-intensive sector. The project, called REACT (short for Renewable Electrochemical Advanced Conversion of CO₂ to Target products), aims to provide a renewable alternative that converts industrial emissions into valuable resources.
The project focuses on recycling CO₂ from hard-to-abate industries such as steel, cement, and chemical manufacturing. Through a novel impurity-tolerant tandem electrochemical process, REACT can directly convert low-purity industrial CO₂ streams into valuable chemical products while significantly reducing the need for costly pre-treatment. Powered by renewable energy, the project takes previously unavoidable CO₂ emissions and turns them into a valuable feedstock for next-generation chemicals and materials.
Category: Research
