From Waste Gas to Valuable Raw Material
Waste gas that used to billow in large quantities from giant industrial facilities can be recycled as a raw material in the future.
Covestro is collaborating with 14 partners from science and industry to extract carbon from the steel industry’s emissions in the European research project Carbon4PUR.
The carbon is then used in the production of insulating materials and coatings.
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A particularly exciting aspect is that the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide can be processed directly instead of having to be separated first, which saves a lot of work.
Partnership
In the words of Prof. Mark Saeys from consortium partner Ghent University: “We need this type of collaboration between industry and universities and across various sectors and skills in order to achieve research and climate goals more quickly. Carbon4PUR sets an excellent example with great partners.” The idea behind Carbon4PUR is to use the carbon from industrial waste gases as a future source of raw materials for the polymer industry.
The first test quantities of polyol precursors have now been successfully manufactured at the CAT Catalytic Center of RWTH Aachen University on the basis of model gases.
Covestro has managed to convert these precursors into polyols and to scale the process to the point of being able to test initial rigid foam and coating applications at project partners.
The results are now being taken into the next phase.
“Using industrial waste gases as a future source of raw materials with a view to expanding the resource base and closing the carbon cycle is an important step in the right direction,” says Dr. Liv Adler, Covestro’s Carbon4PUR coordinator.
REFS
From Waste Gas to Valuable Raw Material
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