How it works

The ever-increasing levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere are a pressing imperative for scientists and engineers to develop technologies capable of mitigating its harmful effects. Turning this waste CO₂ into something useful for people and planet is our mission at Econic.

One of the key challenges scientists face is how to overcome the inherent stability of CO₂, the property that leads to its long atmospheric lifetime and increasing global temperatures. Most often, large amounts of energy, in the form of heat or electricity, are needed to transform CO₂ into other useful chemicals. At Econic, we develop catalyst technologies that significantly reduce the energy required for these reactions to occur allowing CO₂ to be turned into polymers for use in creating everyday plastics.

Econic Catalyst Technology

Our catalyst technologies react CO₂ with a group of chemicals called epoxides – traditional building blocks in the polymer industry – to make polymers that can contain up to 50% by weight of CO₂. Econic’s first success was to build CO₂ into a range of short-chain polymers called polyols, which are used predominantly in the polyurethane industry.

Our innovative catalyst technology allows polyol manufacturers to tailor the amount of CO₂ incorporated into their polyols according to the performance requirements of a wide range of polyurethane applications.

What’s more, our catalyst technology is unique in its ability to operate efficiently under pressures low enough to be used in existing polymer manufacturing plants without the formation of significant by-products.

Econic’s growing patent portfolio protects our catalyst technologies worldwide and includes more than 40 granted successfully to-date.