Feedstock Dependency:
Naphtha cracking is the backbone of olefins (ethylene, propylene) production — the building blocks of plastics, solvents, and intermediates- ??
What innovative cracking technology could enable seamless switching or co-processing of naphtha and biomass-derived feeds to produce high-yield olefins, unlocking flexible, low-carbon pathways for existing steam crackers?
Pyrolysis oils from plastic waste contain contaminants (chlorine, sulfur) that damage conventional crackers
What advanced inline purification technology could reliably remove chlorine, sulfur, and other contaminants from pyrolysis oil in real time, enabling safe, high-volume co-feeding into existing steam crackers without upstream upgrades or yield loss?
H₂ has low volumetric energy density; pipeline retrofits and new storage (liquid H₂ / ammonia carriers) require billions in capex
How can existing natural gas pipelines and storage infrastructure be cost-effectively retrofitted or adapted to safely transport and store green hydrogen at scale, minimizing new CapEx while meeting safety and compression requirements for chemical industry use?
Existing crackers can only tolerate limited % blends of bio or recycled feedstocks without significant modification ?? – relevant for India??
What retrofit upgrade kit or process enhancement could allow conventional steam crackers to co-process significantly higher blends (30–50%+) of bio-based or recycled feedstocks without major reactor redesign, preserving throughput and product quality?
At TRL 6–8, pilot industrial symbiosis networks — where one plant’s waste becomes another’s feedstock — face persistent integration challenges around feedstock quality consistency, logistics coordination, and contractual risk-sharing between companies. Without structured frameworks, these networks remain fragile and difficult to scale.
Can a standardized operational framework be designed that allows chemical companies at pilot scale to reliably exchange waste streams as feedstocks, while fairly distributing quality risk between partners?
Process Emissions (Operations/Midstream):
Steam crackers require furnace temperatures above 800°C — currently achieved only by burning fossil fuels?? – relevant for India??
What breakthrough electric or hydrogen-fired furnace design could reliably achieve and sustain temperatures exceeding 800°C at industrial throughput for steam cracking, delivering fossil-free operation while matching current yield and reliability?
Industrial furnaces and fired heaters across chemical plants are all designed around fossil fuel combustion specs
What drop-in burner retrofit solution could enable existing industrial furnaces and fired heaters to switch seamlessly from fossil fuels to hydrogen or ammonia combustion, preserving furnace integrity and performance while eliminating CO₂ emissions from combustion?
CO₂ captured from chemical reaction by-products is high purity but most plants have no infrastructure to store or utilise it
How can a compact, modular on-site CO₂ utilization unit be engineered to convert high-purity captured reaction CO₂ into valuable co-products (such as methanol, synthetic fuels, or polymers) directly at the chemical plant, creating new revenue streams and closing the carbon loop?
Energy Intensity:
Chemical plants run energy-intensive separation processes like distillation which alone accounts for a massive share of total plant energy consumption
What innovative separation technology — such as advanced membrane systems, electrochemical separation, or hybrid approaches — could deliver equivalent separation performance to traditional distillation while reducing energy consumption by 50% or more?
Compression and pumping systems across chemical plants continuously run at full load regardless of actual process demand
What smart, demand-responsive control system could be implemented for compressors and pumps in chemical plants to dynamically adjust power consumption in real time based on actual process needs, delivering substantial energy savings without compromising reliability?
Emissions (Downstream):
Plastic products at end-of-life are predominantly incinerated releasing all the embedded carbon accumulated across the entire value chain back into the atmosphere
What advanced end-of-life treatment or chemical recycling technology could prevent the release of embedded carbon from plastic waste, enabling material or energy recovery while closing the carbon loop and feeding back into production?
Solvents and chemical additives used in industrial processes evaporate or degrade in use releasing VOCs and CO₂ that are never tracked back to the chemical manufacturer
What next-generation low-volatility, non-volatile, or inherently stable chemistry could be developed for industrial solvents and additives to eliminate in-use evaporation, degradation, and associated VOC/CO₂ emissions entirely?
Fertilizers derived from ammonia release nitrous oxide — a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than CO₂ — when applied to agricultural soil
How can an advanced fertilizer formulation, coating, or precision application technology be engineered to deliver equivalent agronomic performance while substantially reducing or capturing nitrous oxide emissions directly at the point of soil application?
Supply Chain Fragmentation:
Small and mid-size chemical raw material suppliers do not have the tools or expertise to measure and report their own emissions meaning large gaps exist in upstream carbon accounting
How can a lightweight, user-friendly emissions measurement and reporting tool be designed specifically for small and medium-sized chemical suppliers — requiring minimal expertise — that enables accurate self-assessment and seamless data sharing with downstream customers?
Circular Economy Gap:
Pyrolysis — the most common chemical recycling technology for plastics — produces inconsistent oil quality that varies batch to batch making it unreliable as a feedstock for chemical plants
What advanced pyrolysis process or control system could be developed to consistently produce high-quality, chemical-grade pyrolysis oil from variable plastic waste feeds, eliminating batch-to-batch variability and making it a reliable drop-in feedstock for existing crackers?
Polymers beyond polyolefins — such as polyurethanes, epoxies and composites — have no viable chemical recycling pathway and are effectively unrecyclable today
What novel chemical depolymerization or breakdown technology could be invented to selectively convert hard-to-recycle polymers (polyurethanes, epoxies, composites) back into their original or high-value monomeric building blocks, creating viable circular pathways for these materials?