As part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Celanese Corporation has begun running a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project at its Clear Lake, Texas site.
The project is projected to capture 180,000 metric tons of industrial carbon dioxide emissions and produce nearly 130,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol each year.
Celanese is participating in the CCU program to offer low-carbon options across its Acetyl Chain and Engineered Materials products to help global customers meet the growing demand for increasingly sustainable and circular solutions.
The CCU project will take the industrial CO2 emissions that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere from Celanese and apply reduced-carbon-intensity hydrogen to chemically convert the captured CO2 into a methanol building block.
This low-carbon input will be utilized for downstream production to reduce traditional fossil fuel-based raw materials while helping produce a wide range of end products across most major industries.
Unlike carbon capture and sequestration projects, which capture CO2 emissions and inject them into the ground to be stored, CCU will help Celanese foster circularity by using CO2 emissions to create products and reduce the need for fossil fuels.
“With this project, our Celanese value chain can convert CO2 waste into products for a wide array of end-markets, including consumer goods like adhesives, packaging, toys, paints, coatings, and more,” said Mark Murray, Senior Vice President of Acetyls at Celanese. “Our globally integrated value chain positions us to provide a wide range of solutions with carbon capture content across both our integrated Acetyl Chain as well as other methanol-derived products like acetal copolymers.”
