For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed Elemental Recycling’s President (Ian Bishop). Elemental Recycling has developed a low-cost, patented, single-step process to upcycle organic waste products such as plastics and tires into high-purity spherical graphene and hydrogen. For more information on Elemental Recycling, please visit www.elementalrecycling.com.

Background: Before co-founding Elemental Recycling in 2019, Ian Bishop and Ron Presswood after visiting a Bay City recycling plant that was attempting to use iron to process hazardous waste into hydrogen thought they could develop a better solution. After years of collaborating with University of Houston and Texas A&M researchers, Ian and Ron eventually co-developed the recycling process that is the foundation of Elemental Recycling. In January 2022, Elemental Recycling received growth investment from Freestone and is currently deploying a commercial plant in Houston.

Value Proposition: Able to process 50,000 pounds per day of mixed and/or contaminated plastics and tires, Elemental Recycling’s second-generation unit possesses the following unique features:

Carbon Neutral: The process is free from Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions and has no waste streams, providing a clean, domestic source of a critical energy transition mineral and reducing the amount of plastic waste going into oceans and landfills.
Single-Step, Patented Process: With 8 patents issued in multiple countries and several more pending, Elemental Recycling’s process requires only one step and can be continuously operated, which maximizes efficiency and minimizes setup time.
Wide Feedstock Compatibility: Can process hard-to-recycle contaminated plastics and tires simultaneously as well as electronics, munitions, chemical weapons, and feedstocks with chlorine and/or fluorine with only minor modifications to the process.
High-Purity Output: Produces 40,000 pounds per day of spherical graphene that is >99% pure and can be used in lubricants, lithium-ion batteries, construction materials and numerous other products as well as 10,000 pounds per day of hydrogen.
Transportable: Elemental Recycling’s unit is the size of a Chevrolet Suburban, which enables it to be easily transported and placed nearby the source of feedstock.

Closing Thoughts: With the amount of plastic waste and ability to manufacture battery storage domestically both being a major concern, it is refreshing to see solutions like Elemental Recycling’s that can solve those problems both economically and cleanly. We look forward to following Elemental Recycling, as they continue to build and deploy their recycling units.

Company Spotlights

February 2023