Did you know the chemical industry supplies products to virtually all other value chains, including the food, construction, health and transport sectors? All these industries now have to renew themselves as part of the green transition, and SINTEF is working to help them.
Researcher and blog author Theresa Rücker, pictured here in her lab at SINTEF, where she is helping to develop innovative and eco-friendly methods of chemical manufacture. Image credit: Torbjørn Pettersen
The demand for innovative and greener chemical manufacturing has been clear for some time and represents a key aspect of the green transition in Norway and Europe. The chemical industry must undergo radical change, but how will this change take place?
Today, the chemical industry supplies products to virtually all other value chains, including the food, construction, health, and transport sectors. As chemicals become more expensive, this affects consumer prices throughout society. Across Europe, increases in the price of oil, gas, and energy are impacting all chemical manufacturing processes because these are commonly very energy-demanding.
Green chemical manufacture is just one area of investment in what the EU defines as its ‘twin transition’, which involves identifying new, non-fossil raw materials, promoting by-product utilisation, and accelerating the electrification of manufacturing processes.
At SINTEF Industry, where I work, we’re coordinating a project called ELOXYCHEM that is investigating alternatives to our conventional thermochemical manufacturing processes. ELOXYCHEM is an abbreviation for Electrochemical Oxidation of Cyclic and Biogenic Substrates for high-efficiency production of organic CHEMicals.
My team is investigating whether we can manufacture a variety of acids (carboxylic acids, in particular) using energy-saving processes. These acids are a key raw material in producing paints and varnishes, catalytic converters, fine chemicals, agricultural chemicals, scents, pigments and much more. What is special here is that we want to manufacture them using the waste products from other chemical manufacturing processes.
We will also look into poorly exploited by-products from biorefinery processes, so-called side streams, to manufacture chemicals of greater value. If we succeed, there will be multiple benefits including converting waste materials into a resource, energy savings, and a wealth generation boost with increased sustainability.
The ELOXYCHEM project will involve a study of three different manufacturing processes, where one line of investigation will conclude with a pilot facility as a precursor to chemical manufacture at industrial scale. SINTEF Industry will build the pilot facility in Trondheim and will later be transferred to one of the project partners, Evonik Operations in Germany. Here, both the equipment and the process will be tested for two years with a view to commercialisation and major upscaling.
The second strand of the project will involve the development of an eco-friendly process designed to produce approximately the same interim products from other industrial residual products.
Innovative technologies of the type that we are aiming to develop as part of the ELOXYCHEM project have the potential to produce not only familiar, but also new and exciting, building blocks for the chemical industry in much more sustainable ways by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and chemical waste.
Finally, the project will develop a so-called ‘digital twin’ of the manufacturing facility. This will be used to plan production using available energy sources in the smartest possible way. Since production will be powered by renewable energy sources alone, planning must take into account the intermittent nature of electricity supplies from wind and solar power, which may impact on the process.
Source: Sintef