Start-up CO2BioClean makes plastic from carbon dioxide
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
Plastic made from hot air
When greenhouse gas becomes a raw material
Carbon dioxide is bad for the climate. But some companies use it as a raw material – for example CO2BioClean in Eschborn., which converts greenhouse gases into biodegradable plastic.
Too much greenhouse gas and too much waste: Fabiana Fantinel and Alessandro Carfagnini believe they have found a technical solution to both of these problems. The founders of the start-up CO2BioClean based in Eschborn have developed a process that converts climate-damaging carbon dioxide into biodegradable plastic. The idea was also recognized in the competition for the Hessian Founder’s Prize.
After successful laboratory tests, the chemists Fantinel and Carfagnini are currently having a research facility built in the Höchst Industrial Park in order to test production on a larger scale. “Everything was available here,” says Fantinel about the industrial park. The 50-year-old Italian knew the region from her time at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, but she had also looked at numerous other locations in Europe before founding CO2BioClean in 2019.
The decision in favor of Höchst was made not least because of the opportunity to cooperate with Provadis University, which belongs to the industrial park operator Infraserv. The most important employees for CO2BioClean are used at the university: bacteria that convert carbon dioxide into polyhydroxyalkanoates. This is the scientific name of the crumbly substance that CO2Bio-Clean produces, a type of polyester.
The idea of capturing carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust gases and making something useful out of it is not new: Ineratec, a company that is already active in the industrial park, wants to use CO2 together with hydrogen to produce climate-neutral fuels. And in June, the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology put a pilot plant into operation at a Thyssenkrupp steelworks in Duisburg that converts steelworks gases into methanol. Methanol can also be used as a fuel or as a base for various chemical products.
There are also plastics based on CO2: The Dax group Covestro, for example, uses the gas to produce polycarbonate, a plastic that is used, for example, for car headlights, eyeglass lenses or washing machine housings. Covestro also uses CO2 as a raw material in the production of polyurethanes, which are required for foams.
Products can be easily composted
The special thing about the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) that CO2BioClean wants to produce is that they can be easily composted. The first product made from the polymers is already available: a protective cover for young trees that is intended to prevent deer and other wild animals from nibbling off the bark.
It has been agreed with forestry companies in Hesse and Bavaria to test 2,000 of these cases in their forests, reports Josef Glaß, the COO of CO2BioClean. If conventional protective covers were damaged, the scraps would remain as waste – the PHA covers, on the other hand, would rot, says Glaß. However, they would have to prove to be sufficiently durable to offer the trees protection for three years.
Because PHAs are biodegradable, they are not suitable for all plastic products. However, according to the founders, they would be ideal for packaging or disposable syringes. Their vision: If the plastic used worldwide were made entirely from carbon dioxide, at least ten percent of industrial CO2 emissions could be used for this purpose.
However, there is a long way to go until then. For the research facility, which is scheduled to go into operation in the first quarter of 2024, CO2BioClean will initially use carbon dioxide delivered in gas bottles.
In the spring, the start-up received a total of 3.6 million euros from the European Innovation Council (EIC), the investment management company Hessen and the Austrian company Ghazan Commodities GmbH to build the facility. If the process proves successful, it could be licensed to companies worldwide and used directly on large industrial facilities.
