Celanese sees growth opportunity in low carbon, recycled and bio-based materials – CEO

NEW YORK (ICIS)–Celanese sees a major growth opportunity in low carbon, recycled and bio-based materials, its CEO said.

In January 2024, the company announced it started running a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project at its Clear Lake, Texas, site as part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co. The project is expected to capture 180,000 tonnes/year of CO2 industrial emissions and produce 130,000 tonnes/year of low-carbon methanol.

“We actively capture carbon off some of the major producers in Clear Lake, Texas, at our site and we take those CO2 emissions… and we recycle it back into the ATR (autothermal reformer),” said Lori Ryerkerk, CEO of Celanese, on a webinar hosted by Chemical Marketing & Economics (CME-STEM).

This low-carbon methanol can then be used to produce vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE) emulsions and other downstream products, she added.

“We have customers like Amazon that want a lower carbon footprint product, and we are able to meet that customer need,” said Ryerkerk.

The CCU unit takes CO2 emissions that were otherwise being vented into the atmosphere from both Celanese and from third parties to use as a feedstock.

“The exciting thing about this project is that we started it as a way to make more methanol and have found the value is also there for being able to produce through mass balance tracking, a green product that can be certified under the ISCC carbon footprint certification system,” said Ryerkerk.

In March 2024, Celanese announced that the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) group certified its Low Carbon CCU Methanol under the ISCC Carbon Footprint Certification (CFC) system.

Low Carbon CCU Methanol demonstrated a greater than 70% reduction in carbon footprint relative to a global average benchmark for fossil-based methanol production, as included in EU legislation, according to Celanese.

“This is an area of growth for us – to be able to expand our green product offering,” said Ryerkerk.

In Celanese’s Sustainable Solutions portfolio, those using carbon capture fall under the ECO-C label, with recycled content under ECO-R and bio-based content under ECO-B.

RECYCLED AND RECYCLABLE CONTENT
On the recycled content side, Celanese in Europe recycles nylon airbags into high quality nylon which can be used by customers such as furniture giant IKEA, said Ryerkerk.

IKEA has a goal of using only recycled or renewable-based plastic in all its products by 2030.

“In India, we take fishing nets that are recovered from the sea, clean them, sort them and recycle them into a nylon grade which is used for furniture,” said Ryerkerk.

“We have the ability to make recycled [products] across much of our portfolio now,” she added.

Celanese also works with customers to develop products that are recyclable. An example is its NEOLAST fiber made from thermoplastic copolyester elastomer which can be blended with other fibers at a level anywhere from 2-40% of total fiber content.

“We developed this fiber together with Under Armour to solve a problem they had with elastane (Spandex) because Spandex is energy intensive, uses solvents that aren’t very environmentally friendly, and tends to shed a lot of plastic fibers,” said Ryerkerk.

“The great news is that this is recyclable. Elastanes are not. It’s solvent-free so more environmentally friendly from a production standpoint and it has better characteristics of wear – it’s more colorfast, better wicking, all these things,” she added.

NEOLAST is in the very early stages of sales with Under Armour producing some products with the fiber and Celanese talking to a number of other companies interested in using it, the CEO said.

“This is a long-term commitment. This has been in development for many, many years. We’ve just introduced it, and it will probably be several years yet before we really see widespread use of it,” said Ryerkerk, who noted that most of these types of new products take three to five years to develop.

BIO-BASED CONTENT
Other customers such as toy producer LEGO aim to use more renewable-based content.

“We are able, since we start with bio-methanol and bio-ethylene – these building block chemicals – to make a bio-content material which we call ECO-B for those customers [that want to use] a non-fossil fuel feedstock,” said Ryerkerk.

In H1 2024, 30% of the resin LEGO purchased was certified according to mass balance principles, which translated into an estimated average of 22% renewable sources. The company plans to “significantly increase this percentage” through the rest of 2024 and beyond.

Celanese considers its ability to offer low carbon, recycled and bio-based products a unique competitive advantage.

“Many of our competitors may offer one of these, but we’re probably one of the few that have the ability right now to offer all of them – and offer them in a way that is certified,” said Ryerkerk.

GROWTH PROSPECTS
Celanese’s Sustainable Solutions portfolio represents just around 5% of sales today but is growing double digits on a percentage basis every year, said the CEO.

A stronger economic recovery would be a tailwind as these products are typically more expensive.

“We’ll see what happens with the economy. Let’s be honest – most people are more interested in these things when the economy is better than when the economy is tough like it is right now,” said Ryerkerk.

“But there are a lot of companies that have made commitments to go to more sustainable solutions. As our volumes grow, we’re able to make sustainable solutions more affordable for them… I think it is going to be quite some time before it is the majority of our portfolio, but that’s OK because we need time to build our capabilities as well,” she added.

Focus article by Joseph Chang