Bayer Starts Pilot Plant for Plastic Manufacturing with CO2

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Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH

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Bayer AG

Support from federal and state authorities

On the occasion of the opening ceremony for the pilot plant, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for Innovation, Science and Research, Svenja Schulze, said that the project focused on a “very specific, highly innovative solution that extended from basic research to late-stage testing.” She added that the project is an example of successful cooperation between industry and universities on a central climate policy issue.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is – together with Bayer – supporting the CAT Catalytic Center. The “Dream Production” project is receiving federal funding amounting to approximately EUR 5 million. Including the investment of Bayer and RWE the total budget amounts to some EUR 9 million. If the testing phase goes well, the industrial production of plastics based on CO₂ should start in 2015.

Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Rachel from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research spoke of a “revolutionary” approach that could completely change how we view CO₂. “The debate on climate change has portrayed CO₂ as the villain of the piece in the public eye. Now we are supporting research into alternative solutions that could make good use of CO₂ as a raw material.”

Professor Klaus Töpfer, founding director of the new Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany, said that the carbon cycle must be closed: “CO₂ should be used as a resource and not disposed of as waste.”

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

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

The efficient use of CO₂ is only possible because a suitable catalyst, for which experts had been searching for four decades, has finally been discovered. This research breakthrough was made by scientists at Bayer and the CAT as part of the forerunner “Dream Reactions” project, which was also funded in part by the German federal government. During the current “Dream Production” initiative, researchers at the CAT are, among other things, testing the compatibility of the catalyst with CO₂ from the power plant. RWTH Aachen University is subjecting all stages of the new process to comprehensive ecological and economic scrutiny, and is also comparing it with conventional processes and products.

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