Clariant, provider of specialty chemicals, has announced its participation in the Carbon2Chem project, a cross-industry project for the reduction of industrial CO₂ emissions of industrial facilities for steel production. Today, the project starts the active phase, which will be sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for an initial period of four years.

The project aims at transforming smelting gases from the steel industry into valuable chemicals. Currently, these chemicals are only used energetically – as a source of power generation in the steel power plant. The objective of the Carbon2Chem project is to find a solution for using the smelting gases for the production of materials, for example methanol.

Clariant provides methanol catalysts and the necessary application know-how in order to validate their suitability. Additionally, the company participates in the upstream processing of the smelting gases as methanol can only be won from smelting gases in purified form. For the gas purification, Clariant contributes adsorbents, catalysts and expert know-how on their application.

To sustainably improve the ecological performance of steel production, Clariant considers it an important step to convert the component currents of the smelting gases, which also contain considerable amounts of hydrogen. Dr Martin Vollmer, Chief Technology Officer states: “Clariant supports the project, as its objective – the significant reduction of industrial CO₂  emissions – is consistent with Clariant’s commitment to sustainability.”

Tags: Clariant