The EU process industry needs to become less dependent of fossils as source of carbon, and – at the same time – to reduce the greenhouse effect by decarbonizing the economy. Carbon4PUR will tackle the two challenges at the same time by transforming steel mill gas streams of the energy-intensive industry into higher value intermediates for market-oriented consumer products.
The industrially driven, multidisciplinary consortium aims at achieving the goals of the EU Horizon 2020-SPIRE-8-2017 call by focusing on the development and demonstration of a new flexible technology for the production of value-added chemicals, polyester polyols, of carbon derived from steel mill gas.
Both the consortium and the work are organized along the full value chain starting with the provision and conditioning of industrial emissions from a steel to a chemical company in line with the concept of industrial symbiosis, going through the transformation into chemical building blocks which will be further transformed into polymer intermediates and flow into desired sustainable polyurethane applications of rigid foams and coatings.
Background
The European chemical industry faces multiple pressures for emissions reduction, disadvantage in feedstock cost to other regions, and partially stagnating markets.
CO and CO2 represent alternative, abundant and valuable sources of carbon which can be a suitable raw material. Their utilization has the potential to contribute significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and thereby unwanted climate change effects. In addition, the utilisation of CO and CO2 as a feedstock by the European process industry to produce materials and chemicals can become a key solution to reduce the EU dependence on imports of fossil resources providing a secure supply of carbon feedstock while contributing to the EU emission reductions commitments.
Acknowledging the EU fossil resources dependency and climate change challenge, in 2015, the EU launched the SPIRE-08-2017, “Carbon dioxide utilisation to produce added value chemicals” call for action, as part of the Horizon 2020 programme. The aim of the call has been to support innovative chemical processes to produce added value chemicals from CO and CO2 and demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility in an industrially relevant environment.
Carbon4PUR research and innovation project addresses the scope of this topic.
Concept
The industrially driven, multidisciplinary Carbon4PUR consortium will develop and demonstrate a novel process based on direct chemical steel mill gas mixture conversion, avoiding expensive physical separation, thus substantially reducing the carbon footprint and also contributing to high monetary savings. The consortium and the development are organized along the full value chain starting with the provision and conditioning of industrial emissions from a steel to a chemical company fully in line with the concept of industrial symbiosis, going through the transformation into chemical building blocks and from the CO and CO2 based polymer intermediates, finally arriving at the implementation into rigid foams and coatings.
Objectives
The general objective of the Carbon4PUR project is to develop and demonstrate (TRL4-6) a new flexible technology for the production of value-added chemicals, polyester polyols, of carbon derived from steel mill gas. Specially, the consortium will:
- Reduce carbon footprint of polyurethane intermediates by 20-60% compared to today’s polyurethane products manufactured from crude oil due to the re-utilisation of anthropogenic CO and CO2.
- Save 70% of process energy compared to conventional chemical processes.
- Provide – first time from waste CO – higher value novel polyols for the production of new, sustainable polyurethane applications (rigid foam and coatings) as an example of high value polymers, matching market needs and requirements.
- Implement a direct conversion of carbon from the steel mill gas mixture to building blocks for the production of polyol intermediates.
- Condition industrial steel mill gas by avoiding expensive“traditional” purification and conditioning methods.
- Prepare Industrial Symbiosis between consortium partners in the Port Maritime de Fos (France).
- Demonstrate the economic and social feasibility of the new technology.
- Exploit and transfer project results to key stakeholders and additional EU industries.
Benefits
Carbon4PUR is highly ambitious with respect to scientific knowledge, industrial advancement, and environmental and social impacts.
- Carbon4PUR is developing knowledge and will demonstrate an innovative technology for the production of value added chemicals derived from steel mill gas streams.
- Carbon4PUR will help the EU process industry to reduce its dependency on imports of petrochemicals resources and to provide a secure supply of carbon feedstock.
- Carbon4PUR will contribute significantly to the reduction of the GHG emissions.
- Carbon4PUR will increase the industrial competitiveness from the adoption of a novel production process of added-value chemicals.
- Carbon4PUR will contribute to the creation of new employment and job security in the EU industry.
- Carbon4PUR is contributing to Industrial Symbiosis[1].
[1] Industrial Symbiosis is referred to the synergistic exchange of waste, by-products, water and energy between individual companies. The contribution of Industrial Symbiosis to EU sustainable economy and resource efficiency is recognized in The Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe (COM(2011)571), which points out that improving the reuse of raw materials through greater ‘Industrial Symbiosis’ could save EUR 1.4 billion a year across the EU and generate EUR 1.6 billion in sales.
European industry fosters CO2 reutilization
- Next step in collaboration of industrial and academic partners
- Evaluation of industrial-scale testing in southern France
The pan-European research project Carbon4PUR takes the next step in investigating how waste gas from the steel industry can be turned into chemicals for valuable plastics. Now, the consortium starts evaluation of the ideal conditions for industrial-scale testing in southern France where a steel mill of ArcelorMittal and a chemical plant of material producer Covestro are close neighbours. On laboratory-scale, the Carbon4PUR project has so far shown promising results with first plastic precursors having been obtained from flue gases such as CO2.
The consortium invites representatives from industry, politics, media and authorities to a field trip on March 20 in the port city of Fos-sur-Mer next to Marseille to inform about the status and discuss the future infrastructure needed to scale up research under real industrial conditions. Fos-sur-Mer could be an ideal location for such a pilot plant.
“We must consider waste as a resource. A cross-sector approach as pursued by the Carbon4PUR consortium is the right way to reach this goal”, says Dr. Markus Steilemann, CEO of Covestro. “Together, we can make more use of alternative carbon sources like CO2 in order to close the carbon loop and save direct fossil resources such as crude oil.”
Researching industrial symbiosis
Carbon4PUR is a consortium of 14 industrial and academic partners from seven countries, coordinated by Covestro. The cross-sector project, which runs until 2020, receives funding from the European Union and aims at researching and developing a new technology that can transform steel mill gas streams such as CO2 and carbon monoxide (CO) into so-called polyols – chemical key components of polyurethane-based foams and coatings that are otherwise obtained from crude oil. The decisive idea is to avoid physical separation of CO and CO2 to make the process particularly efficient and economical.
Carbon4PUR is unique because it brings together partners from the whole value chain to work collaboratively on processes and specifications. For each step, different sectors have to cooperate in ways they have never done before. To date, the project has shown first promising results: Test quantities of polyol intermediates have been obtained both from CO and CO2. The consortium will work on exploiting and transfering project results to key stakeholders and additional EU industries.
In the future, carbon as a feedstock in the form of mixed waste gases from the ArcelorMittal plant in Fos-sur-Mer could undergo catalytical transformations in the nearby Covestro plant to become a chemical intermediate. This could be further used by Belgium-based polyurethane foam manufacturer Recticel and Greek raw material supplier to the coatings industry Megara Resins to form end products. Academic and institutional partners are RWTH Aachen University, TU Berlin, Dechema, Imperial College London, the universities of Gent and Leiden, the French Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, South Pole Carbon Asset Management, Grand Port Maritime de Marseille and PNO Consultants. They investigate the sustainability and various technical and economical questions.
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