We use chemicals for more or less ‘everything’. Now we have to find smarter ways of making them

The demand for innovative and greener chemical manufacture has been clear for some time and represents a key aspect of the green transition now taking place in Norway and Europe as a whole. The chemical industry is having to undergo radical change, but how will this change take place?

Today, the chemical industry supplies products to virtually all other value chains, including the food, construction, health and transport sectors. As chemicals become more expensive, this affects consumer prices throughout society. All across Europe, increases in the price of oil and gas, and of energy in general, are having an impact on all chemical manufacturing processes because these are commonly very energy demanding. 

Green chemical manufacture is just one area of investment in what the EU defines as its ‘twin transition’, which involves identifying new, non-fossil, raw materials and promoting by-product utilisation and the accelerated electrification of manufacturing processes.  

Blog author and research scientist Theresa Rücker at SINTEF SHOW MORE

At SINTEF Industry, where I work, we’re coordinating a project called ELOXYCHEM that is looking into alternatives to our conventional thermochemical manufacturing processes. ELOXYCHEM is an abbreviation of ELectrochemical OXidation of cYclic and biogenic substrates for high efficiency production of organic CHEMicals.

My team is investigating whether we can manufacture a variety of acids (carboxylic acids, in particular) using energy-saving processes. These acids are a key raw material in the production of paints and varnishes, catalytic converters, fine chemicals, agricultural chemicals, scents, pigments and much more. What is special here is that we want to manufacture them using the waste products from other chemical manufacturing processes.

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We will also be looking into poorly exploited by-products from biorefinery processes, so-called side streams, with the aim of manufacturing chemicals of greater value. If we succeed, there will be multiple benefits including the conversion of waste materials into a resource, energy savings, and a boost to wealth generation – with increased sustainability as the result.

The ELOXYCHEM project will involve a study of three different manufacturing processes, where one line of investigation will conclude with a pilot facility as a precursor to chemical manufacture at industrial scale. The pilot facility will be built by SINTEF Industry in Trondheim and will later be transferred to one of the project partners, Evonik Operations in Germany. Here, both the equipment and the process will be tested for two years with a view to commercialisation and major upscaling.

The second strand of the project will involve the development of an eco-friendly process designed to produce approximately the same interim products from other industrial residual products.

Innovative technologies of the type that we are aiming to develop as part of the ELOXYCHEM project have the potential to produce not only familiar, but also new and exciting, building blocks for the chemical industry in much more sustainable ways by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and chemical waste.

Finally, the project will develop a so-called ‘digital twin’ of the manufacturing facility. This will be used to plan production using available energy sources in the smartest possible way. Since production will be powered by renewable energy sources alone, planning must take into account the intermittent nature of electricity supplies from wind and solar power, which may impact on the process.  

• Would you like to know more about the ELOXYCHEM project? 

Take a look at our website here (in Norwegian).