Materials News

Pilot plant for carbon dioxide-based PUs

As a result, CO2 - a waste gas and key contributor to climate change - can now be recycled and used as a raw material and substitute for petroleum, says the company. The process is the result of the "Dream Production" project; a collaboration between industry and science.

Bayer is working on the 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 breakthrough in laboratory-scale catalysis technology, which makes it possible to put CO2 to efficient use, for the first time.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is - together with Bayer - supporting the CAT Catalytic Centre. The "Dream Production" project is receiving federal funding amounting to EUR 5 million. Including the investment of Bayer and RWE the total budget amounts to some EUR9 million. If the testing phase goes well, the industrial production of plastics based on CO2 should start in 2015.

The carbon dioxide used in the project comes from RWE Power's lignite power plant in Niederaussem outside Cologne, Germany. At its Coal Innovation Centre there, the company operates a CO2 scrubber where the carbon dioxide is separated from the flue gas.

At the pilot plant kilograms of the carbon dioxide are used to produce one of the two components essential for the production of PUs. Bayer MaterialScience is testing these materials, which are used primarily to produce soft and rigid foams, at one of its existing plants.