Swiss clean technology enterprise Grensol has developed a three-step separation process to realize the recycling of automobile shredder residues | Top 100 Swiss Innovations

Image source: Grensol

Founded in 2021, Grensol is a Swiss cleantech company dedicated to developing a three-step separation process. By integrating metal recycling, mineral extraction and photolysis technologies, this process realizes stepwise separation and transformation of automobile shredder residue to achieve resource utilization, turning it back into raw materials that can be used in industrial production.

Grensol was co-founded by Rajiv Singhal, Marc Ocskay and Marco Ziegler. Rajiv Singhal, the company's Chief Executive Officer, studied at Harvard Business School and previously worked at Glencore, McKinsey and EuroChem, with main engagement in mining, resource recycling and enterprise operation, and around 20 years of working experience in multinational enterprises. Marc Ocskay, the company's Chief Financial Officer, has long served at UBS and Glencore, engaging in corporate financing and related financial businesses. Marco Ziegler, the company's Chief Technology Officer, holds a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He once worked as a researcher and chemistry lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and later served at McKinsey for a long time and became a senior partner.

Image source: Grensol

Industrial wastes such as end-of-life vehicles have complex components that are difficult to separate and recycle effectively. The traditional recycling of end-of-life vehicles mainly involves dismantling vehicles, recovering metals from them, and finally incinerating or landfilling the remaining wastes. These residual wastes, known as Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR), account for 20% of the total weight of automotive materials. ASR contains a large amount of metal scraps, broken glass and mixed plastics, which are difficult to separate and purify through traditional recycling processes and can only be incinerated or landfilled. This not only causes resource waste and environmental pollution, but also increases waste treatment costs, and further restricts the application of recycled materials in industrial production.

Image source: Grensol

Grensol has developed a three-step separation process that can effectively separate the three main components in automobile shredder residue: metals, minerals and polymers. Moreover, its recycled materials can be further upcycled to become recyclable industrial raw materials.

Grensol's separation process includes three core steps: metal recycling, mineral extraction and photolysis. Based on metal recycling technology, Grensol first uses the differences in physical properties such as density and magnetism of different materials to separate and recover metals like steel, aluminum and copper from automobile shredder residue through physical separation methods, so that they can be reused in industrial production. Subsequently, Grensol adopts other physical methods as well as hydrodynamic applications to further extract mineral components from the residue to obtain glass by-products, which can be sold as raw materials for cement production. Finally, for mixed plastics and other hydrocarbons that are difficult to process by traditional mechanical recycling, Grensol adopts photolysis technology, which can simulate and accelerate the natural decomposition process of hydrocarbons under sunlight, decomposing hydrocarbon residues into their basic constituent units: hydrogen molecules and carbon molecules, which can be used to produce new polymers. Through the multi-step recycling process, Grensol can improve the recycling rate of metals, minerals and hydrocarbon materials, and reduce resource waste and environmental pollution caused by traditional incineration and landfilling.

Based on the existing process, Grensol can currently recycle and resell industrial products such as recycled metals, recycled glass and mineral raw materials, carbon-based materials and hydrogen. Among them, recycled metals can be used as secondary raw materials for metal smelting and industrial manufacturing, and have already achieved commercial sales; recycled glass and mineral raw materials can be used in the production of building thermal insulation materials, cement and other building materials, and the relevant technologies have been verified and are being advanced for industrial application. In February 2026, the company's first industrial waste recycling plant launched its metal recycling business. By mid-2026, it had processed more than 430 tons of automobile shredder residue in total, and the plant has a designed annual processing capacity of 25,000 tons.

In July 2025, Grensol completed a seed round financing of 1.8 million Swiss francs, with investors including Buildify Earth, Kickfund and Venture Kick. The funds are mainly used for the construction of its recycling plant, the scaling of core technologies and the development of new application scenarios.

Grensol is an enterprise on the 2025 TOP100 Swiss Startups list. TOP100 Swiss Startups brings together the best "Swiss Made" startups and growing technology innovation enterprises, and is the most internationally influential benchmark list in Switzerland's technology innovation sector. Since 2011, this list has selected 100 of the most pioneering and market-prospective Swiss innovative enterprises and 25 Swiss growing enterprises with the highest unicorn potential across Switzerland every year, covering fields such as life sciences, engineering machinery, robotics, information and communication, low-carbon technology, and food technology. The TOP100 Swiss Startups and its series of brand events are landmark activities in Switzerland's innovation ecosystem, representing the highest ground of Swiss innovation and the forefront of international investment and financing.

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