New Zealand based LanzaTech, a known name in carbon recycling technology, has partnered with a clean technology firm Twelve, to make way for a unique process that would allow transformation of CO2 to Polypropylene. The collaboration has been supported with a fund of USD 200,000 given under a joint program by Barclays bank and Unreasonable Group designed to aid businesses that tackle the world’s most pressing problems.
The aforementioned plant production will be implemented by merging LanzaTech’s expert Pollution-to-Products technology that currently enables the production of ethanol and related chemicals from the fermentation of industrial CO2 waste, with Twelve’s process that electrochemically converts CO2 to cost-competitive chemicals.
Polypropylene is a widely used thermoplastic polymer composed of upstream propylene monomer units that are predominantly obtained from the catalytic cracking of virgin gas oil in the refinery sectors. This thermoplastic polymer has multitudinous applications in the sectors of packaging, automobile, electronics, home appliances, construction and healthcare equipment. The global demand for Polypropylene in 2020 stood at USD 117.8 billion which is projected to increase at a CAGR of over 3% in the coming 5 years.
As per ChemAnalyst, the collaboration between LanzaTech and Twelve echoes their similar ideologies of harnessing natural sources for sustainable development. The CO2-to-Propylene production plant represents a great initiative towards reducing the exploitation of petrochemical sources and for lowering down of carbon emissions to a significant level.
With minimal feedstock dependency this plant is expected to remain unaffected with the fluctuating upstream material prices or their unavailability that would prove advantageous to its operation. On the commencement of this plant, the local and international supplies will also receive a boost that may lead to a fall in the prices of Polypropylene.
