Startup Series: Cleaner Chemicals with Dioxcycle

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. 

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

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

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant