Inevitable Episode 393

Decarbonizing Ethylene with Dioxcycle

Published January 25, 2024

Sarah Lamaison is the CEO and Co-founder of Dioxycle.

Dioxycle is developing technology to produce sustainable ethylene from recycled carbon emissions. Ethylene is the world’s most used organic chemical and it’s a precursor to many everyday products including construction materials, plastics, and textile fibers. Indeed, it’s a core feedstock for polyester.

Ethylene is also an enormous market at well over $100 billion. We were excited to learn from Sarah about Dioxycle as an example of a startup leveraging electrolysis to convert electricity, water, and carbon emissions into low carbon chemicals. Dioxycle announced a Series A of financing earlier this year with investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale.

Episode recorded on Dec 14, 2023 (Published on Jan 25, 2024)

In this episode, we cover

[02:00] An overview of Dioxycle
[04:37] Sarah's background in CO2 electrolysis
[06:41] Ethylene's role in everyday products, including polyester fabrics
[11:02] Dioxycle's novel carbon electrolysis technology for converting emissions into ethylene
[17:53] The challenge of decarbonizing ethylene's embedded emissions
[23:14] Dioxycle's goal of cost-competitive production below fossil prices
[25:24] Current trends and challenges in sustainable ethylene production
[28:26] The need for renewable power sources for Dioxycle's electrolysis process
[30:19] Dioxycle's focus on deploying an industrial pilot and team expansion
[33:49] Key global centers for ethylene production
[34:36] Dioxycle's vision as a trusted tech provider in emissions recycling