As part of Celanese’s joint venture with Mitsui, which focuses on Fairway Methanol, Celanese has also started running a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) project. This project is based in Texas, at the company’s Clear Lake facility.

Celanese has been focusing on what they could do or develop through the use of CCU, to help their global customers meet the constantly growing demand for solutions which are both more sustainable and circular than current solutions. At the moment, Celanese is offering low-carbon options across their Acetyl Chain and Engineered Materials products, through the use of CCU, to provide the help that they can to their customers. These products which have gone through the CCU process, will be able to be launched under the ECO-CC name and will also be able to be transparently supported through mass balance tracking, as well as life cycle assessment processes.

The CCU process developed by Celanese works through the use of industrial Co2 emissions from Celanese and third-party sources. One huge benefit of creating the system this way, is that 80% of the captured Co2 waste, originates from third-party sources, meaning these companies will receive lots of help in their decarbonisation processes. These emissions are captured before they can enter the atmosphere, as the technology applies reduced-carbon-intensity hydrogen, which chemically converts the captured carbon dioxide into a methanol building block, which will then be used for down stream production. The resulting low-carbon input can then be used to reduce traditional fossil fuel-based raw materials and it can also aid the manufacturing process of a wide range of end products, which will largely benefit multiple major industries.

The expectations for this project, are that it will capture 180,000 metric tons of Co2 which has been emitted from industries. Whilst simultaneously producing 130,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol annually.

Acetyls at Celanese, Senior Vice President, Mark Murray, commented, “With this project, our Celanese value chain can convert CO2 waste into products for a wide array of end-markets, including consumer goods like adhesives, packaging, toys, paints, coatings and more. Our globally-integrated value chain positions us to provide a wide range of solutions with carbon capture content across both our integrated Acetyl Chain as well as other methanol derived products like acetal copolymers (POM).”