T

he focus of recent R&D and commercial develop- companies have been increasing their pledges towards

production goes well beyond traditional thermal goods companies are ramping up efforts to produce less,
reuse more waste, and lower their carbon footprints, while
- consumers and investors are demanding that companies
cular approaches. These routes include, but are not limited -
to, the utilisation of biomass or waste plastic, renewably ducers and process licensors respond to these changes
conversion, and moving forward will largely determine which chemical and
plastics producers will remain leaders.
address certain critical factors affecting technology viabil-
footprint, lifecycle analysis, and overall

chemical and polymer industries. -

-
compelling a closer examination of the shifts toward: ties, modular or small-scale production, and environmental
Biomass and recycled waste feedstocks to the cracker issues pertaining to resource utilisation, life cycle analysis,

-
should provide the readers with a better understanding of
-
sibly which solutions are right for their own operations.
They can identify technological gaps and hurdles to over-
Historical context and drivers come and how to plan their strategic and/or commercial
objectives in the coming years. Lastly, they should also
for fuels, petrochemical intermediates, plastics/rubbers, and comprehend the important role that catalysis will play in
other products change, with calls for increased circularity
and environmental consideration increasing. While they broadly, the petrochemical/chemical industry.

levels, when combined, ethylene and propylene account

of propylene as a valued by-product of gasoline produc-

existed in the past will continue going forward, such as

high energy requirements, large quantities of produced -
nologies that span the propylene production range from
-
catalysts with substantially larger propylene yields have
novel processes and catalysts that go beyond traditional been invented, as demonstrated in a recent review on light

39
 -

Figure 1

-
Figure 1

Propane dehydrogenation
-
-

-
- -

Oxidative coupling of methane

40
Technologies (now part of Lummus), Sulzer Chemtech GTC partner. A wide range of technological improvements are
Technology, Grillo AG, and Sinopec. Another prospective

Corporation (CNPC). respect to the inventions, and suppliers for equipment are
OCM is considered one of the most promising routes to
convert methane into ethylene directly. OCM suffers from

in secondary reactions, high methane conversions corre

The technology has received more than €12 million in

funding from government and private investors for a new

maintenance and lifetime provided with more certainty.

While The technology will have to compete with other electrically
OCM may never reach the scale necessary to compete with

CO for Twelve. CO2-----> CO ----> C ??

Germany, and the Netherlands. The consortium came

Campus, to investigate the operation of naphtha and gas

seems to not yet at the level required for an economically

ity issues, rapid deactivation of the catalysts, which leads

reduction), is also one of the main challenges.

funding application is successful. The electrically heated

applies CO

,10

42
 Key challenges include the development of DRM reac-
tor technology, in particular the improvement of thermal naphtha is 100% bio-based and has identical physical

(bio)-gas compositions and operations at pressures and

-

11
ethanol to ethylene through dehydration. The technology
/h). -

company claims that the proprietary Hummingbird tech-

- -

material.
-

security in oil-importing countries. -

fats. The hydrotreatment process produces bio-naphtha in 2025.

bio-ethylene and bio-propylene production.

With regards to the process itself, pretreatment of the

Topsoe, has developed a biofuels production pyrolysis pro- mechanical recycling efforts and energy recovery activities

Figure 2 12

44
and diesel, which in turn can be used as feedstocks for pol- LanzaTech has developed a novel gas fermentation tech-
ymer production. SABIC and partner Plastic Energy formed nology that captures CO-rich gases and converts the car-
a 50-50 joint venture (JV) partnership and, in 2020, started bon to fuels and chemicals. The company has developed
the construction of a circular polymer production unit in proprietary microbes that ferment the CO gases in the bio-
Geleen, the Netherlands, which is expected to become reactor. In essence, the process recycles waste carbon into
operational before the end of 2022. fuels and chemicals. According to the company, the gas fer-
OMV and Borealis’s ReOil pyrolysis process converts mentation process is an alternative to the Fischer-Tropsch
post-consumer and post-industrial plastics (mixed plas- process.
tics) to synthetic crude oil (syncrude) and petrochemical Houston-based Cemvita Factory is an industrial bio-
feedstock for virgin plastics production. OMV’s process is technology start-up using innovative synthetic biology to
a pyrolysis process where thermal depolymerisation is per- decarbonise heavy industry, such as chemical manufactur-
formed without adding a catalyst or hydrogen. According
to OMV, the plan is to achieve one more scale-up step of stored in a subterranean environment to produce one or
the plant by 2022 by increasing the post-consumer plastic more organic compounds useful as fuel and feedstocks for
feedstock capacity to 16,000 t/y before aiming at building other applications. Cemvita’s biomanufacturing platform
mitigates emissions from traditionally energy-intensive
plant by 2025. chemical and catalytic conversion processes by operating
LyondellBasell’s proprietary MoReTec recycling tech- under ambient temperature and pressure.
nology (see Figure 2) aims to return hard-to-recycle
Conclusions
its molecular form for use as a feedstock for new plastic The focus is, as always, to improve the cost/performance
materials that can be utilsed in food packaging and health-
care items. LyondellBasell and KIT have proven that the ‘green’ and target net-zero GHG emissions. Both regula-
use of a catalyst in the pyrolysis process, or the structural tions and market forces will continue to support R&D aimed
breakdown of plastic waste into molecules, is faster and at achieving these outcomes. For mature processes like
steam cracking and PDH, the most plausible methods for
The company announced in 2020 that the pilot plant was
capable of processing between 5 and 10 kg of household or the use of renewable or bio-based feedstocks or ones
plastic waste per hour. The pilot plant aims to understand that supply process heat. Carbon capture technology is
the interaction of various waste types in the molecular another way to lower the carbon footprint of these tradi-
tional processes. In addition to reducing overall emissions,
the process temperature and time needed to decompose
the plastic waste into molecules. The goal is to complete an important driver going forward.
the tests over the next couple of years and then plan for an
industrial-scale unit. chemicals industry. Governments and oil and gas majors
Some other technologies that are further from potential
commercialisation include Mourik’s BlueAlp Technology, crackers and looking seriously to scale them up in the near
a plastic-to-pyrolysis process and Topsoe’s PureStep. term. Technip Energies and Siemens announced their joint
BlueAlp and Petrogas (both Mourik subsidiaries) have
resolved various bottlenecks and teething problems at selected by the Cracker of the Future consortium for a
their recycling plant in Ostend, Belgium, which is now in demonstration unit. Dow’s CEO claimed that e-crackers are
full operation. The companies claim that the plant is con- more than a decade away from commercialisation, yet the
tinuously processing 1.4 tons of plastic waste per hour and consortium has claimed it will have commercial units ready
that the gasoil produced is of adequate quality to be used by 2026.
by chemical producers. Topsoe’s PureStep process can be Coolbrook’s concept (see Figure 3) differs from the others
run alongside its existing HydroFlex process, used for bio- in that it is not just about using electric resistance heated
fuels production. It can take in a range of solid materials, cracker coils. Instead, it relies on a technology that con-
including biomass, plastic, tyres, and municipal solid waste, verts kinetic energy to heat produced from an electrically
as well as liquid feeds – tall oil, vegetable oil, and tallow. powered rotor. It has shown impressive yields compared
The PureStep process is still in the development phase with to both Lummus and Technip steam cracking technology.
regard to chemicals production.

Bioprocesses do so on large scales, as well as mechanical robustness

BASF has developed high-performance industrial enzymes, and maintenance issues still need to be proven from pilot
alpha-amylases, uniquely suited for grain processing and demonstration.
bioethanol production. BASF states that its proprietary Bio-ethylene, like other bio-based chemicals, relies on
enzymes improve fermentation by enabling higher yields, sources of cheap and plentiful feedstocks. The Braskem
- process has been successfully scaled up in Brazil, whereas
pyrolysis of bio-based waste is likely to result in many

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