Reactive Recycling: Commercial Momentum Builds, Revenue Conversion Takes Time

Reactive Recycling: Commercial Momentum Builds, Revenue Conversion Takes Time

Record commercial activity and an expanding customer pipeline highlight growing momentum in Nexam Chemical's Reactive Recycling business. The next challenge is converting this progress into sustained revenue growth.

Nexam Chemical's Q3 2026 report reveals encouraging developments within Reactive Recycling (RR), despite a challenging quarter for the group. Commercial activity is accelerating, customer engagement is increasing, and the pipeline continues to expand. However, the transition from industrial evaluation to meaningful recurring sales volumes remains gradual.

During Q3, Nexam shipped 86 material samples, an increase of 54% compared with Q2 and 48% year-over-year. Internal commercial-scale trials reached 12, compared with a normal quarterly level of approximately five. These figures suggest that investments in business development are generating tangible results, with more customers evaluating the technology and more applications undergoing industrial testing.

The broader Recycling pipeline reinforces this positive development. Since Q1, the number of early-stage projects has increased significantly, while additional customers have progressed towards commercial production.

Recycling Pipeline Development

The development-stage pipeline has expanded by 26% since Q1, while the number of customers in ongoing commercial business has increased by 15%. This demonstrates growing industrial interest, although the progression through later commercialisation stages remains considerably slower.

The number of scale-up projects has remained unchanged since Q2, while technical approvals and commercial customers have increased more modestly. This is not necessarily surprising. Industrial adoption of new polymer additives requires extensive testing, production validation and customer approvals before recurring orders can be established.

Nevertheless, the distinction matters. A growing pipeline increases future opportunities, but it is ultimately the conversion into larger commercial volumes that will determine the financial impact.

Reactive Recycling sales increased 66% year-over-year to SEK 9.3 million during Q3, demonstrating that commercial progress is already translating into revenue. However, total group sales declined 9%, illustrating that Recycling's growth has not yet been sufficient to offset weaker performance elsewhere in the business.

What makes the latest update particularly interesting is the combination of accelerating commercial activity and an expanding customer base. More samples, more industrial trials and additional projects entering the pipeline create a broader foundation for future growth. At the same time, existing commercial customers offer opportunities to increase volumes as adoption expands across production lines and applications.

Looking ahead, the progression of the 25 scale-up projects and increasing order volumes from existing customers will be particularly important. These developments could provide a clearer indication of when the growing commercial activity begins to translate into stronger top-line performance.

Reactive Recycling is gaining momentum, but the financial inflection point still lies ahead. The underlying activity is encouraging, and the commercial foundation continues to strengthen. The next milestone is converting this momentum into sustained, meaningful revenue growth.