Novel catalysis systems are the means to realising this vision. SECARA is a spin-off of the research group led by Professor Regina Palkovits, co-head of the WSS Research Centre “catalaix” at RWTH Aachen University. The firm’s idea was first hatched when Marcus Lehnertz was writing his master’s and PhD theses. “To begin, I focused on the degradation of bioplastics,” says the second of the three co-founders and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SECARA. This material served as an ideal model substrate for his work, as it’s easier to recycle than conventional plastic.

His research was so successful that, in 2023, he shifted his focus to technical plastics—and, in 2024, began setting up SECARA. The third SECARA co-founder is Jan Uecker, who takes on responsibility for process engineering and production scale-up as the firm’s Chief Operating Officer (COO). As Fabian Nagel says: “With the combined expertise of our management team, SECARA has everything it needs to succeed.”

Chemical degradation

To protect their trade secrets, the three founders are reluctant to share too many details about how SECARA recycling works. However, they did reveal that they’ve developed a reaction platform that enables the precise degradation of technical and reinforced plastics into their basic building blocks (monomers) which can be reused to create new plastic chains (polymers).

“Our chief aim is to chemically degrade plastics while retaining as much value as possible,” Marcus Lehnertz explains. The catalysts themselves can be thought of as a kind of knife that activates the quick and precise cleaving of chemical bonds. “However,“ Lehnertz says, “we have to be sure this ‘knife’ doesn't run wild. Otherwise, it would completely destroy the material rather than cleaving only the targeted bonds.”

This is crucial, because if the plastic were to be completely degraded, its value would be lost, and a lot more energy would be needed to produce new plastics from the resulting components. Lehnertz estimates that the new recycling method emits roughly sixty to seventy percent less CO₂ than the manufacture of similar plastic qualities starting from scratch. This calculation is based on Germany’s current energy mix; if the process were powered exclusively by renewable energy sources, a complete decarbonisation would be feasible.

Plastic in cars

The three entrepreneurs are first focusing on recycling polyamides, the extremely durable, high-quality plastics used in the automotive industry for parts that must withstand temperature fluctuations and bear heavy loads. The new SECARA method is capable of breaking down polyamides into their individual building blocks. As one example, nylon 6, a polymer commonly used in industry, reverts to the monomer ε-caprolactam, one of its constituent parts. The method also works on materials in which the polyamides have been coloured with carbon black and reinforced with glass fibres. “Our process has the ability to both produce the monomer in industrial quality and also separate it from carbon black and glass fibres,” says Marcus Lehnertz.

The team’s next step is to scale up the process, and the start-up founders are currently collaborating with a major partner to plan a pilot plant. “Our idea is for this plant to process plastic on a scale of metric tons per year,” says Jan Uecker. “One of SECARA’s advantages is that our catalysts do the job without dangerous chemical solvents or acids,” he continues. “Other methods create by-products like salt, meaning we’d need a corrosion-resistant reactor made of titanium, for example, which would considerable drive up costs.”

Rapid translation to practical application

The affiliation with RWTH Aachen University and the WSS Research Centre “catalaix” provides an ideal starting point for SECARA. Since May 2024, the firm has also been part of the QuinCAT green chemistry incubator in the chemistry building at RWTH Aachen University, and it has received approval from the renowned EXIST research transfer start-up funding programme for further scaling up its processes. As of July 2025, SECARA receives support from the “catalaix” JUMP funding programme, enabling the firm to expand its technology to other plastics.

The SECARA team place great value on this concentrated effort to rapidly scale up promising catalysts while simultaneously developing additional applications. “If we spent the next four or five years just conducting research in the lab, we’d never make the leap to industrial application,” Fabian Nagel says. And Marcus Lehnertz adds: “This approach certainly means our work is more complex, but this also makes it fun—especially as a team.”

Interested partners

The three founders are optimistic that there’s a market for a circular value chain involving high-quality plastics. “Experienced market players confirm there’s keen interest in recycled monomers—whether it’s due to legal regulations, the price of carbon dioxide or the desire to make European supply chains more resilient,” says Fabian Nagel.

Regardless of these considerations, SECARA will certainly have more than enough material to work with. Every year, several million metric tons of technical plastics are produced that then find their way into waste streams—in the form of scrap cars, for instance. All of which means the chances are good that the first findings generated at the WSS Research Centre “catalaix” will soon be making industrial plastic production more sustainable.