Cecilia Wins 2025 Ocean Exchange Neptune Award

Ft. Lauderdale, FL — October 28, 2025 — Cecilia has been selected as a winner of the 2025 Ocean Exchange Neptune Award, an international recognition for solutions that advance understanding of the ocean and minimize human impact on marine resources through sustainable innovation.

The 2025 Ocean Exchange convened in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from October 26–28, bringing together global innovators, scientists, and industry leaders working across the blue economy. Three winners were chosen from fifteen finalists: two for the Neptune Award and one for the Ocean Enterprise Award. Cecilia Founder and CEO Kathryn Carpenter joined Jake Russell of Orpheus Ocean and Masaki Nakada of NeuralX as this year’s honorees.

Cecilia’s selection reflects the judging criteria of innovation, impact, and ability to execute. The company presented its proprietary reactor system that converts industrial plastic waste into circular nanocarbon materials and clean hydrogen—demonstrating how environmental performance and economic viability can reinforce one another.

“Real circularity only scales when it makes economic sense,” said Kathryn Carpenter, Founder and CEO of Cecilia. “Sustainability cannot exist apart from a viable business model. At Cecilia, we’re proving that sustainable materials can compete commercially while delivering measurable environmental impact.”

About Cecilia
Cecilia is a circular materials company that transforms hard-to-recycle plastics into high-performance nanocarbon additives. The company’s modular, microwave-assisted reactor system enables local conversion of plastic waste into valuable advanced materials for industrial applications. Inspired by the legacy of astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia works toward a future where plastic waste is no longer a burden and is reimagined as a new set of circular materials.