Alchemy At Scale

Big and Slow: Why Chemical Startups Are Rare

How high fixed costs and long payback periods encourage scale, inhibit value capture, and make it difficult to bring sustainable alternatives to market.

Jul 3, 2023 • 

Darius Mortazavi

17

10

April 2023

Solid Raw Materials: A Sustainability Bottleneck

Atoms aren’t bits, but fluids get pretty close. The problem is that sustainable raw materials aren’t fluid.

Apr 8, 2023 • 

Darius Mortazavi

14

2

March 2023

Kinetics: The Chemical Industry's Kryptonite

How kinetics ruins control, leads to undesirable outcomes, and makes chemical production look like a casino.

Mar 9, 2023 • 

Darius Mortazavi

14

3

February 2023

Thermodynamics: Visible Emissions & Invisible Problems

The emissions that we see, what they teach us about making materials, and how to think about solutions.

Feb 23, 2023 • 

Darius Mortazavi

17

7