{"id":172498,"date":"2026-01-21T07:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=172498"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:27:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:27:59","slug":"mars-materials-accepted-into-shell-gamechanger-program-to-accelerate-alternative-acrylonitrile-pathway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/mars-materials-accepted-into-shell-gamechanger-program-to-accelerate-alternative-acrylonitrile-pathway\/","title":{"rendered":"Mars Materials Accepted into Shell GameChanger Program to Accelerate Alternative Acrylonitrile Pathway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/mars-materials-accepted-into-shell-gamechanger-program-to-accelerate-alternative-acrylonitrile-pathway-302660246.html#\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/01\/mars_materials-logo-full-color-cmyk-6in40300ppi.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-172502\" srcset=\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/01\/mars_materials-logo-full-color-cmyk-6in40300ppi.jpg 480w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/01\/mars_materials-logo-full-color-cmyk-6in40300ppi-300x106.jpg 300w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/01\/mars_materials-logo-full-color-cmyk-6in40300ppi-150x53.jpg 150w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2026\/01\/mars_materials-logo-full-color-cmyk-6in40300ppi-400x141.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u00a9 Mars Materials<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Mars Materials (&#8220;MM&#8221; or the Company), a company working to store captured carbon dioxide into everyday products, today announced its selection into Shell GameChanger and successful advancement past the program&#8217;s first stage gate. The program aims to validate an alternative, bio-based feedstock for MM&#8217;s proprietary acrylonitrile production pathway.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MM&#8217;s acrylonitrile is a key chemical building block for carbon fiber, water production polymers, durable plastics, textiles and more, is hydrogen cyanide-free and has been validated by global industry. Produced at MM&#8217;s pilot plant, Cassini, the team has successfully scaled its novel process from gram-scale to kilogram-scale production of acrylonitrile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Shell GameChanger test program aims to validate bio-based sugar feedstock as an alternate raw material to CO<sub>2<\/sub> for the MM&#8217;s acrylonitrile pathway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re beyond excited to participate in Shell GameChanger, a program that exemplifies how startups and corporations can innovate together to unlock commercial opportunity,&#8221; said <strong>Aaron Fitzgerald, CEO and Co-Founder of Mars Materials<\/strong>. &#8220;Shell&#8217;s support has already accelerated our development by an estimated three years. Shell GameChanger will help expand our choice of raw material with a bio-based sugar option, giving us another edge over the incumbent acrylonitrile production process, which relies on a globally distributed supply chain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to technical guidance, the Shell GameChanger program will help MM with support in market discovery as well as commercial demonstration and go-to-market planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having successfully passed the first stage gate of the Shell GameChanger program, MM continues to demonstrate that its partner-first approach works. The company intends to replicate its success and seeks to attract further investment, grant funding, and strategic industrial partners necessary for the next phases of its scale-up and commercialization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About Mars Materials<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Mars Materials, Inc. PBC (&#8220;MM&#8221;) is a Houston, TX-based, venture- and Breakthrough Energy Fellows-backed, carbon dioxide utilization startup. MM transforms carbon into products that purify dirty water and makes materials such as carbon fiber. The company has the only hydrogen cyanide-free and carbon negative pathway to be validated by global industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mars Materials (&#8220;MM&#8221; or the Company), a company working to store captured carbon dioxide into everyday products, today announced its selection into Shell GameChanger and successful advancement past the program&#8217;s first stage gate. The program aims to validate an alternative, bio-based feedstock for MM&#8217;s proprietary acrylonitrile production pathway. MM&#8217;s acrylonitrile is a key chemical building [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":172502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The Shell GameChanger test program aims to validate bio-based sugar feedstock as an alternate raw material to CO2 for the MM's acrylonitrile pathway","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[5838,10744,10416,10743],"supplier":[18473,647],"class_list":["post-172498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-carboncapture","tag-circulareconomy","tag-useco2","supplier-mars-materials","supplier-shell-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172498"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=172498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}