Bayer, RWE advance CO2-to-polymers project
18 Feb 2011
Leverkusen, Germany – Bayer has started up a pilot plant to turn CO2 emissions into feedstock for the production of polyurethanes, at its Chempark Leverkusen site.
The chemicals major is working on the “Dream Production” project with the energy company RWE, which supplies the CO2 used in the process. Other project partners are RWTH Aachen University and the CAT Catalytic Center, which is run jointly by the university and Bayer.
The researchers recently achieved a break-through in laboratory-scale catalysis technology which makes it possible to put CO2 to efficient use, for the first time, Bayer claims.
The project is receiving German federal funding of around Euro5 million. Including the investment of Bayer and RWE the total budget amounts to some EUR 9 million. If the testing phase goes well, the industrial production of plastics based on CO2 should start in 2015.
CO2 used in the project comes from RWE Power’s lignite power plant in Niederaussem outside Cologne, Germany. At its Coal Innovation Center there, the company operates a CO2 scrubber where the carbon dioxide is separated from the flue gas.
At the pilot plant - designed, built and run by Bayer Technology Services - kilogrammes of the carbon dioxide are used to produce one of the two components essential for the production of polyurethanes.
Bayer MaterialScience is testing these materials, which are used primarily to produce soft and rigid foams, at one of its existing plants.
The efficient use of CO2 is only possible because a suitable catalyst, for which experts had been searching for four decades, has finally been discovered. This research breakthrough was made by scientists at Bayer as part of a forerunner project.
Bayer researchers are currently testing the compatibility of the catalyst with CO2 from the power plant. RWTH Aachen University, meanwhile, is carryiing out an ecological and economic study of the new process.
