Threading-CO2 has demonstrated a first-of-a-kind route that converts waste CO/CO2 into PET, the polyester that makes up most of the world's synthetic fibers. This goes beyond the current state of the art in two ways. First, commercial CO2 utilisation is today limited to simpler products such as methanol, urea, polyols and polyurethanes, and CO2 electrolysis typically stops at carbon monoxide destined for fuels; Threading-CO2 instead carries CO2 all the way to a mass-market textile polymer. Second, CO2-derived products are widely recognised to cost far more than fossil equivalents, which is why barely 1% of captured CO2 is used as a feedstock. Threading-CO2 has a cost target of about EUR 2/kg with a fully "drop-in" PET, chemically identical to fossil PET and usable in existing spinning, weaving and recycling lines, unlike partly bio-based or recycled PET, which face feedstock limits and quality loss.
Key results to date: a pilot CO2-to-CO electrolyser has been designed, built and commissioned, producing its first CO from CO2, with a modular design that scales to demonstration capacity simply by adding cells. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the biggest in Europe. A robust manufacturing method for large-area gas-diffusion electrodes was validated, enabling continuous, stable electrolysis. For the downstream conversion to monoethylene glycol, two new catalytic routes were developed that raise selectivity and yield above 94-95%, suppress CO2 by-product formation and extend catalyst lifetime 10-100 fold, and were confirmed at pilot scale. General applicability of the MEG from CO2 in PET synthesis was demonstrated by yarn production. An integrated life-cycle sustainability model (environmental, economic and social) was developed and applied to three MEG benchmark scenarios. Preliminary results show that bio-based MEG has a carbon footprint around 68-70% lower than coal-based MEG. These benchmarks will be used as the reference for evaluating the Threading process.
Potential impact: a licensable technology that could support EU plants totaling around 3.9 Mt/year of capacity by the early 2030s (about 3% of the market), cutting sector CO2 emissions by roughly 7 Mt/year while reducing dependence on oil and on water-intensive cotton.
Key needs for uptake: completing demonstration-scale operation and proving long-term catalyst durability; access to first-of-a-kind project finance; brand off-take and fiber qualification; IPR protection and a licensing model; and a supportive regulatory and standardisation framework that recognises CO2-derived (CCU) content in textile sustainability rules such as the EU Ecolabel and the Digital Product Passport.
