At one of Europe’s biggest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is testing making a key product using sugar as a feedstock instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.
The pilot project involves the production of “aniline,” a chemical used in the manufacture of foam — widely used in mattresses and armchairs, as well as building insulation.
While large-scale, commercial production is likely years away, the experiment marks a small step in the chemical industry’s battle to reduce carbon emissions as Earth faces a dire climate emergency.
Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day, “a quarter goes directly to the chemical industry,” said Walter Leitner of Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade.
“The chemical industry must be completely rebuilt.”
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Plastics maker Covestro — formerly a division of chemical giant Bayer — started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen in late 2023, following laboratory tests.
In a 100-square-meter (1,080-square-foot) room, aniline, a clear liquid, is extracted from a 600-meter network of interconnected pipes.
Using a process developed by researchers at the University of Stuttgart, fermented sugar is treated with chemicals to produce the product.
Aniline is used as a key ingredient for the chemical MDI, which is an essential material for making foam.
Traditionally, aniline is obtained from crude oil derivatives such as naphtha and benzene, but its production emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.
About six million tons of aniline are produced worldwide a year, about one million tons from Covestro.
So far, the pilot project in Leverkusen produces only a small fraction of this, extracting just half a tonne of aniline per day.
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Some experts are skeptical of such an approach.
Using plant matter in production can cut fossil fuels, but whether it can lead to carbon neutrality “is often questionable,” Jens Ginder, of Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, told AFP.
This is especially true when it comes to using “so-called crop biomass like maize, sugar cane and sugar beet”, he said.
Janine Korduan, from the environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture produces “CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and fertilizer and pesticide production”, and also leads to “large biodiversity losses and high water consumption”.
Nevertheless, Guenther said that using plant matter in production processes would likely produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil fuels, although it would be preferable to choose waste materials instead of crops produced in large-scale agriculture.
Other German companies are experimenting in the area.
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Chemical giant BASF seeks to use organic waste, agricultural products or vegetable oils to produce key chemicals such as aniline.
However, there are many obstacles to the further promotion of such projects.
These range from the availability of the necessary organic matter, which is in high demand as the green transition accelerates, to the higher cost compared to producing such chemicals with oil.
Scaling up the process would only be justified if it led to “significant CO2 savings” in the production process, said Thorsten Dreier, the Covestro board member overseeing the technology.
There will also need to be proof that “money can be made in a competitive environment in order to fund research here,” he said.
And for Germany, a major challenge will be persuading manufacturers to build expensive new facilities to process chemicals.
The energy-intensive chemicals sector in Europe’s top economy has been in crisis since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine cut off cheap imports of Russian natural gas, sending energy costs skyrocketing.
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Many companies are now focusing more on shifting production to cheaper locations overseas, rather than expanding domestically.
“Energy costs in Germany are currently three to four times higher than in the United States,” while a bloated bureaucracy is also weighing on the industry, Dreier warned.
Source: AFP