Bayer MaterialScience CO2-to-Plastics Pilot Plant - Chemicals Technology
Bayer Corporation is a company that should be instantly familiar to any of our Coal Country readers in West Virginia, or in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, PA.
They should, in fact, be familiar to anyone who has followed our posts thus far, since, as seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Bayer Improves Coal + CO2 = Carbon Monoxide | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent 7,473,286 - Carbon Monoxide Generator; 2009; Assignee: Bayer Material Science, AG, Germany; Abstract and Claims: A generator ... for the reaction of carbon-containing raw materials and also to an improved process for the production of carbon monoxide gas (CO gas) having a high degree of purity using such a generator. Carbon monoxide gas is frequently produced in the art by means of a continuous process in which carbon-containing raw materials are reacted with oxygen and carbon dioxide ... . Suitable fuels ... are, for example ... coal"; and:
Carbon Dioxide Recycled in the Manufacture of Plastics | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,564,513 - Process for the Production of Carbon Monoxide; 1986; Assignee: Bayer Aktiengesellschaft (AG), Germany; Abstract: Carbon monoxide is produced in an improved process in a carbon-filled, water-cooled generator ... by the gasification of said carbon with a mixed gas of oxygen and carbon dioxide";
we have documented that Bayer has developed technologies which would enable the efficient conversion of Carbon Dioxide, through reactions with hot Coal, into Carbon Monoxide; which Carbon Monoxide is desirable since it is highly reactive and is readily available for further chemical syntheses
One of those syntheses, we remind you, could be that such as detailed in our report of:
Standard Oil Carbon Monoxide + Water = Gasoline | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,559,363 - Process for Reacting Carbon Monoxide and Water; 1985; Abstract: A process for reacting carbon monoxide and water in the presence of a cadmium-containing catalyst ... for the direct production of gasoline".
As we documented in those other reports, however, Bayer seems to have intended the Carbon Monoxide, as made from Carbon Dioxide and Coal, for use in the making of what are known, generically, as "isocyanates".
The term "Isocyanates", of which there are a number of varieties, can carry a negative connotation for some, since many in the public might have heard of them and come to regard them as toxic or hazardous.
Truth to tell, you wouldn't want to mix them into your Sunday morning tea; but, they are a rather immensely valuable family of industrial chemicals; and, in one range of chemical industry application, can be consumed in the making of various and valuable plastics.
Of specific interest to us herein is that they can be reacted with a "polyol", short for "poly alcohol", another family of industrial chemicals with broad utility; with both being converted through such reactions into, typically and generically speaking, "polyurethanes".
Some old Coal miners among our readers might remember, or be familiar with, the "Glue Men", specialists who come into a mine that has an area of bad top that nothing else - - bolts, jacks, cribs, etc. - - seems to hold, and who "glue" the roof up with chemicals; typically chemicals that are drawn through hoses out of two separate drums and mixed together just as they are pumped into a bolt hole drilled up into the top.
The two chemicals, one of which was, as above, an "isocyanate", and the other, a "polyol", reacted to form a rather dense, and strong, sticky, polyurethane foam. And, that strong and sticky polyurethane would, typically, do a pretty decent job of holding things up where they were supposed to be.
Polyurethane comes in a wide variety of types, however, and those various types have broad, immense applications in many industries. The cushion on the chair you likely have your butt planted in right now, for instance, is most probably made of a polyurethane foam.
You might ask, however, where we would get the "polyol", or "poly alcohol" we need to react with the isocyanate; which, as in the above-cited Bayer technologies, we can make, in part, from Carbon Monoxide, which itself is made by reacting hot Coal with Carbon Dioxide.
As we believe we might have noted in the above reports, some polyols can be made from sucrose, or other botanical sugar or carbohydrate; thus, indirectly, through photosynthesis, enhancing the Carbon Dioxide-recycling nature of a polyurethane-forming reaction that consumed an isocyante made, in part, from the Carbon Monoxide formed by those reactions between Carbon Dioxide and hot Coal; as detailed in United States Patents "7,473,286 - Carbon Monoxide Generator" and "4,564,513 - Process for the Production of Carbon Monoxide".
Actually, the needed polyol can, as well, be synthesized directly from Carbon Dioxide.
And, at a plant in Europe, that is being done, right now, by Bayer.
As seen in excerpts from the initial link to:
"Bayer Material Science CO2-to-Plastics Pilot Plant, Germany
(Made available by: About Us Online - Chemicals Technology;
'Chemicals-technology.com has the latest in industry projects and updates, providing the information required by technical and management staff to carry out their daily work in the fast-paced chemicals industry.')
In February 2011, Bayer MaterialScience started a new pilot plant (in the) North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany for producing plastics from carbon dioxide (CO2). It will be used to develop polyurethanes from the waste gas released during power generation.
(Note: the "polyurethanes" will be made "from the waste gas" of a "power generation" facility.)
The Leverkusen pilot plant will test a new process technology on technical scale for producing raw material of polyurethane. The production will be on a kilograms scale. If the testing phase is successful, it will be extended to commercial production on an industrial scale in 2015.
The process technology is based on a zinc catalyst. The catalysis process was developed by researchers at the CAT Catalytic Center, Bayer MaterialScience (BMS) and RWTH Aachen University. The CAT Catalytic Center is jointly run by the BMS, RWTH Aachen University and Bayer Technology Service.
The process technology was developed on a laboratory-scale for the first time to produce polymer materials from CO2.
Bayer aims to use CO2 as an alternative to production of polymer materials from fossil fuels.
The process is also expected to boost sustainability by decreasing the impact of CO2 on global warming.
The pilot plant was designed and built by Bayer Technology Services.
A suitable catalyst for the use of CO2 was not available for four decades. The proprietary technology developed by the scientists of Bayer and CAT uses the gas efficiently. It was developed as part of the Dream Reactions project which began in 2009. It was the forerunner of Dream Productions. The project received funds from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
The CO2 thus acts as a substitute for the petroleum production of plastics.
Polyurethanes are used to produce a wide range of everyday applications. When they are used for the insulation of buildings, the polyurethane saves about 80% more energy than it consumes during production. Light weight polymers are used in the automotive industry, upholstered furniture and mattress manufacturing.
Polyurethanes are formed by reacting two monomer units of isocyanates (polymerics isocyanate or diisocyanates) and polyols. The reaction takes place in the presence of specific quantities of catalyst and additives under predetermined conditions.
The waste carbon dioxide gas is recycled and used as a raw material in the pilot plant. It produces polyether polycarbonate polyols (PPPs), the chemical precursor which is processed into polyurethanes.
(Note: In their reference to "waste carbon dioxide" from the Polyurethane-forming reaction itself, there are a few things to keep in mind. One is that not all Polyurethane-forming reactions generate Carbon Dioxide as a byproduct; typically only those in which some water, H2O, is added to the Polyol and the end desired product is a foamed material. Otherwise, very little CO2 needs to be generated by the Polyurethane reaction. And, in any case, any CO2 that is generated, even in those reactions where a foamed material is desired, would represent only a fraction of the Carbon Dioxide that had been recycled, with the bulk, the majority, of the Carbon atoms from the original Carbon Dioxide remaining in the hydrocarbon polymer that is the foamed, the "expanded", polyurethane plastic "foam".)
Bayer MaterialScience is conducting tests on the polyols at one of its existing plants for polyurethane production. It will be mainly used to produce rigid and soft foam products.
Researchers at the CAT Catalysis Center in collaboration with RWE Power are testing the compatibility of the catalyst with CO2. The RWTH Aachen University researchers are improving the ecological and economical aspects of the process by conducting tests with conventional products and processes.
The CO2 feedstock for the pilot plant will be supplied from a lignite power plant in Niederaussem, operated by RWE Power. The Niederaussem Coal Innovation Center at the plant, also operated by the utility company, has a CO2 scrubbing system for separating it from flue gases.
The pilot plant was designed and built by Bayer Technology Services."
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We think we might have tracked down some of the disclosures of the basic technologies than will, or could, be employed by Bayer at this new, albeit small, factory, where they will be converting Carbon Dioxide, recovered from a "lignite (coal-burning) power plant" into polyols, which CO2-derived polyols can then be combined with isocyanates, which, as in our discussion above, themselves can be made, in part, from Carbon Monoxide formed by reactions between Carbon Dioxide and Coal.
We'll bring those to you as we refine our understanding, just to back up what is being told us herein, i.e.:
Carbon Dioxide, as recovered from a Coal-fired power plant, can be consumed and utilized in the making of a plastic, or polymer, i.e., "polyurethane", for use in "a wide range of everyday applications".
As a footnote, we told you long ago that the Carbon Dioxide geologic sequestration scheme was a scam; that the Carbon Dioxide could, and would, after it had been used by Big Oil to squeegee out more petroleum from natural underground reservoirs and deposits, later be extracted from geologic sequestration, where our higher electric bills would have paid to put it, and used for the synthesis of hydrocarbons, or in other chemical manufacturing processes.
As it happens, and as we hope and plan to document for you in a future report, some other people can't wait for that free, already packaged and concentrated, CO2 to get into the ground.
We'll have more on that development in one or two reports to follow; but, the point to take away herein, the point made so plain by our highly-valued Coal Country corporate citizen, Bayer Corporation, is this:
Carbon Dioxide, especially as it arises as a byproduct from our essential use of Coal in the generation of truly economical electrical power, is a valuable raw material resource.
We can, as Bayer is doing right now in Europe, reclaim Carbon Dioxide from Coal power plant exhaust, and then use that Carbon Dioxide in the synthesis of very valuable polyurethane plastics; wherein, after that polyurethane has been molded and formed into a "wide range of everyday" plastic products, the Carbon Dioxide, from our Coal power plant exhausts, will remain, profitably and productively, "sequestered".
