The Nova Institute for Ecology and Innovation releases a completely revised and extended third version of its technology and trend report, “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as Chemical Feedstock for Polymers – Technologies, Polymers, Developers and Producers.” The Nova report addresses the polymer industry, brands, technology scouts, investors and policy makers.
The report provides 100 pages of information around CO2-utilization for chemical building blocks and polymers. According to Nova, 400 million tons of polymers are produced globally each year, an amount that has been growing by 3–4 % per year for decades. Despite their useful and versatile material properties, polymers face a major problem, says Nova: 90 % are produced from fossil carbon and finally end up as CO2 emissions.
Nova Institute’s report examines alternative, renewable carbon sources in detail: which polymers can be produced from CO2, and by which processes? How far have the technologies already been developed, optimized and implemented in pilot, demonstration and (semi) commercial plants? Which companies and institutes are working on technologies to produce polymers or building blocks from CO2?
In the report, Nova Institute reportedly demonstrates that the potential and the actual production capacity for CO2-based polymers is much larger than commonly assumed. Many technical challenges still need to be overcome to enable the deployment of new CO2-conversion plants on a widespread basis, but the use of CO2 as a chemical feedstock for polymers has been intensively diversified in the last years. There are reportedly several successfully implemented technologies on the market or close to the commercialization phase. The report offers a comprehensive overview of development and commercialization by research groups of industrial key players, start-ups and institutes. At least 40 companies and research projects from Asia, Europe and North America are working on CO2-based polymers and are presented in the report.
For more information, visit: www.renewable-carbon.eu/publications
