The Applied Innovation Roadmap for Chemicals: Electrification Technologies

RMI’s Applied Innovation Roadmap (AIR) for Chemicals focuses on electrification technologies that apply to the production of primary chemicals with the potential for significant emission reductions. The AIR provides an objective, action-oriented perspective on how to advance the technological and deployment readiness of six promising electrification technologies in chemicals: induction heating, resistive heating, shockwave heating, air-source heat pumps, thermal energy storage, and CO₂ electrolysis.

The roadmap is designed for stakeholders across the chemicals ecosystem, including startups, technology developers, chemical producers, government funding agencies, private donors and venture capitalists, academics and researchers, policy makers, nonprofits, and community groups looking to reduce chemicals sector emissions. This roadmap provides transparency on the risks and opportunities for these technologies to scale up while decreasing in cost, and offers guidance on research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities needed.

RMI intends for this work to improve global visibility into the RD&D underway in the chemicals sector and what is needed to accelerate these technologies. This roadmap is also intended to increase coordinated funding and policy for RD&D gaps in chemicals and highlight the critical path activities identified in the AIR as key next steps.

For all six technologies, the AIR includes:

• Current state assessments of active projects and companies, and obtained funding
• Technical assessments of technology readiness and adoption readiness levels and potential emissions impacts
• Impact assessments of human health impacts and risks to scale and adoption within the chemical industry
• A roadmap of RD&D projects, with project scopes, timelines, and budgets to accelerate the technology and its deployment
• A success story highlighting optimistic deployment potentials for each technology, with estimated cost improvements over time relative to incumbent processes

Download the complete Applied Innovation Roadmap to learn more about the technologies’ path to scale. Click to view the executive summary slides below.

RMI acknowledges and expresses gratitude for funding support of this AIR development from Quadr