Cyclize commissions second plasma recycling pilot at Schwedt refinery

Cyclize commissioned its second chemical recycling pilot plant in September 2026, this time at the PCK refinery site in Schwedt, Germany, where the Stuttgart start-up is testing a plasma-based process that converts hard-to-recycle plastics waste into synthesis gas.

The company already operates a similar pilot in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. At Schwedt, plasma and added CO₂ break the waste down into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, a gas that can serve as feedstock for methanol, isocyanates and oxo-alcohols — commodity chains rooted in Germany's chemical industry.

The founding team behind the plant comprises CEO Maike Lambarth, COO Jan Stein, CFO Dominik Novakovic and Stephan Renninger. Lambarth and Renninger began developing plasma technology for CO₂ utilisation in 2018 at the University of Stuttgart's Institute of Photovoltaics; Cyclize emerged as a university spin-off in 2023.

What comes after the pilot?

The next milestone is a first commercial chemical recycling plant at what Stein calls a "European chemical production site". Co-founder and chief operating officer Jan Stein told Plasteurope.com the facility should process around 300 kg/h and be commissioned within the next two years.

Long-term offtake agreements for that plant are already signed, according to the company. A second scale-up step to roughly 3,000 kg/h is planned thereafter, with Cyclize estimating two years of construction for the large-scale unit.

Cyclize puts the investment cost for the first commercial plant at tens of millions of euros. The project is to be financed through a Series-A funding round, which the company says is nearing completion, alongside public funding.

How does the process differ from pyrolysis?

The technical claim matters as much as the capacity figure. According to Stein, the Cyclize process handles a considerably broader range of input materials than conventional pyrolysis, because the waste is broken down into the basic building blocks of carbon monoxide and hydrogen rather than into a pyrolysis oil of variable composition.

The process also offers greater selectivity toward the target product. In pyrolysis, some of the carbon ends up in light gases that are generally burned off; Cyclize says its route converts almost the entire organic component into synthesis gas.

"In short, we recycle the residue of the residue," Stein said. By using standardised plasma units, the company can scale the all-electric technology on a modular basis — the basis for the jump from 300 kg/h to 3,000 kg/h.

Who is driving industrialisation?

Klaus Schäfer, former chief technology officer and executive committee member at Covestro (Leverkusen), is responsible for implementing the industrialisation process at Cyclize. He has supported the start-up since its first financing round in 2024, both as an investor and as chair of the advisory board.

His arrival signals the transition from university spin-off to plant developer. The technology itself took a detour to reach plastics: Lambarth and Renninger originally developed the plasma process for synthetic marine fuels, but abandoned that path as too energy-intensive before redirecting the work toward converting plastics waste and CO₂ into synthesis gas.

What does this change for chemical recycling capacity?

For now, built capacity consists of two pilot plants — Stuttgart-Vaihingen and Schwedt. The 300 kg/h commercial plant remains an announced project, with a commissioning window of roughly two years and financing not yet fully closed.

If the Series-A round completes and the first commercial unit starts up on schedule, Cyclize would add a synthesis-gas route for residual plastics streams that pyrolysis struggles to process, feeding directly into existing chemical production sites. The milestones to track are the close of the funding round, the siting decision for the 300 kg/h plant, and its commissioning date — each of which will determine whether the 3,000 kg/h scale-up stays on the table.