Arzu Sandıkçı – Enzymes for Recycling
With Rhea's Factory, Arzu Sandıkçı is harnessing artificial intelligence-designed enzymes to transform plastic and textile waste into high-value feedstock materials.
About
Arzu Sandıkçı
Sandıkçı is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Rhea's Factory, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to design enzymes that break down difficult-to-recycle plastic and textile waste into their original chemical building blocks. These recovered materials are equivalent to virgin-quality feedstocks, enabling manufacturers to create new bottles, textiles, and packaging.
During West Gate, Sandıkçı is working with NLR's polymer engineering experts to optimize downstream monomer purification and process parameters that reduce costs in Rhea's Factory's enzymatic recycling process.
Critical Need
Traditional plastic recycling methods struggle to process contaminated and mixed waste streams, causing most discarded plastics to be landfilled, incinerated, or downcycled into lower-value products. Existing chemical recycling approaches often require high temperatures, significant energy, and costly processing. As demand grows for recycled materials, manufacturers need scalable solutions that can produce high-quality recycled feedstocks from the plastic waste streams considered unrecyclable.
Potential Impact
Rhea's Factory's technology recovers the original chemical building blocks of plastics, producing high-purity materials that can be used to create new products without losing quality. By processing contaminated waste streams at lower energy requirements, the technology can reduce landfill waste and expand the supply of recycled materials.
Innovation and Advantages
Rhea's Factory combines AI and enzyme engineering to design powerful biological catalysts that break down plastic waste more efficiently than traditional approaches. The company's machine learning platform accelerates enzyme discovery while creating catalysts capable of operating on real-world, contaminated waste streams. By pairing advanced enzymes with a proprietary purification process, Rhea's Factory can recover high-quality materials while reducing the cost and complexity that limit existing recycling technologies.
Profile
Status
Prototype
Industry
Plastics recycling
Potential Markets
- Recycled polyethylene terephthalate for bottles and food-grade packaging
- Textile and carpet fiber producers
- Brands with recycled-content commitments
Looking For
- Funding to scale enzyme production and reach first commercial demonstration plant
- Strategic partnerships, including brand owners, recyclers, and chemical producers for plastic feedstock and monomer offtake
- Industry mentors experienced in scaling biotechnology, recycling, or specialty chemical operations
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Last Updated Sept. 2, 2026