CO₂ Base Products – From Dream to Reality (Dream Products)

Challenge Platform: Industrial Symbiosis

Project Start Date: 12/2012

Lead partner: Bayer Technology Services, Germany

Project type: Innovation – Develops and brings to market climate relevant knowledge, products and services

Project lead: Dr Angelina Prokofyeva, Bayer Technology Services

Partners

This project involves 4 partners in 2 European countries:

• Bayer MaterialScience, Germany (Climate-KIC Core Partner)
• ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Climate-KIC Core Partner)
• RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• DECHEMA e.V., Germany

Concept

Consciousness of climate change mitigation and increasing costs of raw materials for energy production are set to shape the future of polymer production. The Dream Products project aims to explore the potential to partly replace petroleum with CO₂ as a base raw material for polymers with the overall goal of bringing CO₂ based products to market.

The climate change issue

The burning of fossil fuels is one of best-known sources of carbon emissions and processes like deforestation restrict the earth’s natural ability to control atmospheric CO2 concentration. One solution is to use this surplus CO2 for products. These can in many cases replace products dependent on fossil fuels.

The Project Solution

Dream Products benefits from previous successful projects in the field of CO2 utilisation for polyurethane products. CO2RRECT, an earlier project, discovered that hydrogen acts as a catalyst for the activation of CO2. Further research within the Dream Products project developed a concept to synthesise CO2-based polymers on a technical production scale. This research also proved that the use of CO2 in polymer production is both a sustainable and feasible alternative to petroleum-based polymers.

Dream Products aims to bring the first of its CO2 based products to market starting from 2015 earliest. The more products that are developed as CO2 compatible, the more CO2 can be reserved for use by this market. The project recycles CO2, turning it into a profitable resource. By using waste CO2 the industry can work sustainably and efficiently.

The role of Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC provided a substantial amount of funding and was instrumental in the rapid initiation of the project. Climate-KIC’s network provided the perfect partners to the project and helped bring the project to market.