Chemical Engineering July 2013 - 16

Newsfront
CO2 UTILIZATION
Researchers are developing new
technologies for using CO2 as a feedstock
to make a variety of chemicals
O
n May 9, atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels surpassed 400 ppm
in Mauna Loa, Hawaii for the
first time since measurements
began there in 1958. This concentration
is well above the 280 ppm levels
occurring prior to the Industrial Revolution
of the 19th century, according
to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California (San
Diego, Calif.; scripps.ucsd.edu). Today's
rate of increase of CO2 into the atmosphere
is more than 100 times faster
than the increase that occurred when
the last ice age ended, says Scripps.
Efforts to stem the flow of this
greenhouse gas (GHG) into the atmosphere
are becoming a priority in
some countries, which are investing
considerable funding for R&D projects
in carbon capture and storage (CCS;
see, for example Chem. Eng., May
2008, pp. 28-36). Targeting the main
culprits - combustion of fossil fuels
for power generation or cement production
- CCS projects over the last
20 years have primarily focused on
capturing CO2 from fluegas, and then
injecting the pressurized CO2 underground
or into wells for enhanced oil
recovery (EOR).
More recently, another branch of
R&D has begun to blossom - carbon
capture and utilization (CCU)
- whereby the CO2 captured from
fluegas is used as a feedstock to make
chemicals, such as polymers, methanol
and even the key chemical building
block, CO. Chemists and chemical engineers
around the world are trying to
exploit a variety of technologies from
their toolboxes, such as developing
new polymerization catalysts, electrochemical
and photochemical processes,
biotechnological methods and others,
in order to not only make use of the
CO2, but also to reduce the amount of
FIGURE 1. This miniplant in Leverkusen, Germany
is being used to develop CO2-containing polymers for
making polyurethane foam used in cars and furniture
petroleum-derived feedstock needed
to produce products.
In Germany, for example, the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research
(BMBF; Bonn; www.bmbf.de) has recently
earmarked €100 million for
" Technologies for Sustainability and
Climate Protection - Chemical Processes
and Use of CO2, " with the objectives
of lowering dependency on crude
oil and natural gas, using CO2 as a raw
material, doubling energy productivity
by 2020, and reducing CO2 emissions
by up to 40% by 2020. Among the 33
funded projects for the 2009-2015
timeframe are 11 for CO2 utilization
and seven for making chemicals.
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE;
Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov), too,
has recently added CCU to its pallet of
technologies receiving funding through
its National Energy Technology Laboratory
(NETL; Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.
netl.doe.gov),. The DOE is also funding
startup companies struggling to commercialize
CCU technologies. Some of
these projects are described below.*
Polymers with CO2 built-in
In February, the world's first largescale
production
of polypropylene
carbonate (PPC) polyol using waste
CO2 as a raw material commenced.
Partially funded by a three-year,
$25-million grant from the DOE's Office
of Fossil Energy, the PPC run was
conducted by Novomer Inc. (Waltham,
Mass.; www.novomer.com) in collaboration
with Albemarle Corp. (Orangeburg,
S.C.; www.albemarle.com), and
tested Novomer's catalyst technology.
The batch run produced seven tons
of finished polymer - a PPC diol
with a molecular weight of 1,000 g/
* A longer version of this article, as well as a
table of more R&D projects, can be found online
at www.che.com
16 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JULY 2013
mol - that is being used to accelerate
product qualification and adoption in
a wide range of polyurethane applications,
says Novomer's executive vice
president, Peter Shepard. The PPC is
made by the catalytic copolymerization
of CO2 and propylene oxide. Containing
up to 40 wt.% CO2, the PPC
can be tailored to a range of material
characteristics, from solid plastics to
soft, flexible foams, depending on the
length of the polymer chains.
Novomer's homogeneous,
cobaltbased
catalyst is 300 times more active
than previous systems developed
to synthesize aliphatic polycarbonates.
This enables the process to operate
at much milder temperatures
of 35-50°C, says Shepard. Novomer's
process takes place in the liquid phase
at 150-300 psi, with the monomer acting
as a solvent.
Novomer is talking to other toll
manufacturers for larger-scale production
runs, and is positioning its
polymer technology to compete with
conventional petroleum-based materials
for applications such as flexible,
rigid and microcellular packaging
foams, thermoplastics, polyurethane
adhesives and sealants, and coating
resins for food-and-beverage cans.
CO2-derived polyols are also being
developed at Bayer MaterialScience
AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; www.
bayermaterialscience.com), as part of
the three-year Dream Production project,
launched in 2010 with funding from
the BMBF, and with partners RWE AG
(Essen; www.rwe.com), RWTH Aachen
University (www.rwth-aachen.de) and
the CAT Catalytic Center (a research
facility jointly run by the university
and Bayer). A new zinc-based catalyst
was developed as part of a forerunner
project, Dream Reactions, to enable the
efficient reaction of CO2.
http://www.bmbf.de http://scripps.ucsd.edu http://www.energy.gov http://netl.doe.gov http://www.bayermaterialscience.com http://www.novomer.com http://www.albemarle.com http://www.rwe.com http://www.rwth-aachen.de http://www.che.com http://WWW.CHE.COM
Chemical Engineering July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering July 2013
