A new way to recycle waste silicones

Silicones are used in a huge variety of products : cookware, cosmetics, medical devices, lubricants, sealants, and more. They’re prized for their flexibility, low toxicity, and heat resistance. But silicon-based polymers are also very energy- and carbon-intensive to produce. More than 70% of silicone’s carbon footprint comes from the processes to turn quartz into elemental silicon and silicon into polymerizable chlorosilanes. So having a way to regenerate chlorosilanes from waste silicone could save energy and reduce emissions . Now, a team of researchers at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) have devised a strategy to turn nearly any silicone polymer back into chlorosilanes , which can be easily purified by distillation and reused to make new silicones ( Science 2025, DOI: 10.1126/science .adv0919). “The quality of the chlorosilanes that we make is on par with what is achieved industrially,” says Jean Raynaud , one of the lead researchers