Global ethylene production exceeds 317 million tonnes annually, yet more than 95 percent is currently produced through fossil-based steam cracking processes that generate approximately 260 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. Reacting to this, a newly launched EU Horizon Europe project, REACT, aims to transform this carbon-intensive sector by providing a renewable alternative that converts industrial emissions into valuable resources.
Industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are often considered an unavoidable by-product of essential manufacturing processes. REACT (Renewable Electrochemical Advanced Conversion of CO2 to Target products) challenges this perception by turning emissions into a valuable feedstock for next-generation chemicals and materials.
Novel tandem electrochemical process
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.
By combining renewable energy with cutting-edge electrochemical conversion technologies, REACT offers a pathway to:
- Reduce dependence on fossil-based feedstocks
- Lower the carbon footprint of chemical production
- Valorise industrial CO2 streams from hard-to-abate sectors
- Enable circular and resilient European value chains
- Support the production of sustainable polymers, chemicals, and fuels
Funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement No. 101269395) under the call for strengthening the industrial carbon management value chain (HORIZON-CL5-2025-02-D3-27), REACT will run for 48 months from May 2026 to April 2030.
The project has a budget of approximately €8.4 million. It features an elite consortium spanning the entire value chain, from world-renowned scientific institutions to raw material suppliers and polymer manufacturers for the packaging sector.
Coordinated by SINTEF (Norway), REACT includes 13 partners from 10 countries: VITO (Belgium), Johnson Matthey plc (UK), eChemicles (Hungary), Procter & Gamble Services Company NV (Belgium), IDENER (Spain), Norner Research AS (Norway), Empa (Switzerland), K1-MET GmbH (Austria), FARPLAS (Turkey), Johnson Matthey Davy Technologies Ltd (UK), Holoss (Portugal), and ETA-Florence Renewable Energies (Italy).
I’m grateful for the opportunity to kick off this important project together. Turning CO2 into valuable chemicals is an inspiring challenge, and I truly appreciate everyone’s dedication and collaboration as we take these first steps toward a more sustainable future, commented Dr Bernd Wittgens, Project Coordinator at SINTEF.
