MOSCOW (MRC) -- Perstorp says it plans to build a large-scale commercial carbon capture and utilization (CCU) unit at Stenungsund, Sweden, dubbed Project AIR, that will use a production concept the company has developed to produce sustainable methanol from a variety of recovered end-of-life streams and hydrogen from electrolysis, said Chemweek.
The company plans to utilize its own CO2 and residue streams, and use the methanol to substitute all the fossil-based methanol used in its production in Europe. Project AIR aims to substitute all the 200,000 metric tons/year of fossil methanol that Perstorp uses in Europe as a raw material for downstream chemical products, the company says.
The "uniqueness" of the plant's methanol production process is its combination of CCU and the gasification process where CO2, residue streams, renewable hydrogen, and biomethane will be converted to methanol, the company says. The project would support companies downstream in value chains in their efforts toward renewable/circular materials and reduced carbon footprints, and in their ability to offer sustainable, affordable products. Project AIR will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 500,000 metric tons/year if completed, Perstorp says. It adds that the goal is to start producing sustainable methanol in 2025.
"This innovation would both optimize the use of existing technologies whilst building something completely new, as well as demonstrating [CCU], using captured CO2 as a raw material. It would be a concrete example of the transition towards a circular economy and of how significant CO2 emission reductions could be achieved by utilizing existing resources and closing loops. This would be an important step for us to achieve our goal of becoming finite material neutral,” says Jan Secher, president and CEO at Perstorp.
Perstorp says it plans to cooperate with Fortum, Uniper, and Nature Energy for the project. Fortum and Uniper would supply renewable hydrogen from a new electrolysis plant and one of the world’s largest producers of biogas, Nature Energy, would seek to supply biogas to Project AIR.
As MRC informed earlier, last year Perstorp obtained FCN 001967 (Food Contact Notification) from the FDA for the use of Pevalen as a plasticizer in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymers for use in repeateduse food contact articles.
As MRC reported earlier, in December 2017, Perstorp announced world’s first portfolio of renewable alternatives to the essential polyols Pentaerythritol (Penta), Trimethylolpropane (TMP), and Neopentyl glycol (Neo).
As per MRC's ScanPlast report, November total production of unmixed PVC was about 86,100 tonnes versus 86,600 tonnes a month earlier, SayanskKhimPlast and RusVinyl decreased their capacity utilisation last month. Overall output of polymer were 892,100 tonnes in the eleven months of 2020 from 893,600 tonnes a year earlier. Two producers increased their production, whereas two other manufacturers reduced their output.
Perstorp is one of the world leaders in various sectors of the specialty chemicals market, it's pioneer in formalin chemistry, plastics and surface materials. Perstorp was founded in 1881 and is controlled by PAI partners,a major European private equity company. The company has around 1,500 employees in with 22 production plants in Europe, Asia and North America.
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