Open Innovation Programme to Replace Petroleum with CO2 as Feedstock in Manufacture of Plastics

An open innovation programme to replace petroleum with CO₂ as a feedstock in the manufacture of plastics today formally launches at K-Fair in Düsseldorf.

Led by Climate-KIC and Covestro, the EnCO₂re programme has more than a dozen leading research partners in seven countries and is now ready to work with industrial partners to take CO₂ re-use out of the laboratory and deploy it at scale.

The first commercial-scale applications of CO₂ re-use could be polymers and chemical intermediates that are the basis of the plastics we use every day, including in our furniture, the panels that insulate our homes, and under the hood of our cars.

Greenhouse gas emissions are a major cause of man-made global warming. EnCO₂re’s partners demonstrate that the CO₂ re-use market has the potential to grow by more than 20 times its current size, reaching up to 3.7 billion tonnes per year – an amount equal to roughly 10% of global emissions. In this way it can complement efficiency and direct emissions reduction by helping us to:

• Shift away from fossil fuel feedstocks
• Manage the carbon footprints of large CO₂ emitters
• Make plastics more environmentally sustainable

However, CO₂ re-use technologies currently face technical, commercial and financial barriers to development and widespread deployment. EnCO₂re is an innovation hub, partner network and market development programme aimed at breaking down those barriers.

Sira Saccani, Director of Sustainable Production Systems at Climate-KIC: “Cooperation between research and industry is essential to commercialising breakthrough technologies, and CO₂ re-use is no exception. Through the EnCO₂re programme, Climate-KIC is bringing together top research institutes with industrial partners to turn CO₂ from an environmental threat to a valuable industrial feedstock.”

EnCO₂re’s aim is a balanced and prosperous large-scale market for re-used CO₂ through the establishment of a CO₂ value chain, beginning with a focus on polymers and chemical intermediates.

EnCO₂re already has active, world-class projects in two of the three main CO₂-to-chemical conversion routes: catalysis and electrochemistry. It will be adding projects covering the biological route in 2017.

Catalysis and electrochemistry technologies are at different levels of readiness across the programme portfolio. Some are currently proof-of-concept, while others, like CroCO₂PETs, are taking steps toward market readiness by working with producers to validate performance against the industry-standard properties of conventional materials.

Underpinning all projects is a rigorous, peer-reviewed examination of the life-cycle environmental impacts of CO₂ re-use.

Dr. Christoph Sievering, Head of Energy Strategy and Policy at Covestro, says: “Cooperation between industry and science, in addition to active dialogue with society and policymakers, is essential to commercializing breakthrough technologies. Through CO₂ re-use and other innovations, it’s clear that industry can and will be part of the solution to climate change.”