🏭 The Column: August 22, 2025

Good morning. Today we’re talking about the valorization of CO2! It’s a notoriously hard molecule to make money from, but that isn’t stopping people from trying.

Trying to make money from CO2

Using CO2 as a feedstock almost never makes economic sense: it costs a lot of energy to break those carbon-oxygen bonds, and your potential products are all low-value C1 molecules (carbon monoxide, formic acid, methanol, or methane). The story changes in the few cases where CO2 is integrated into a larger chemical process (e.g. in the production of urea or polycarbonate polyols), but those niche cases don’t scale to a broader climate solution—the CO2 sources are rarely co-located with the right large plants, and the mass balance between emissions and chemical demand just doesn’t line up.

But if you were able to reduce that CO2 to a C1 molecule, such as formic acid, in an extremely efficient manner, then maybe you could break even at competitive market prices (roughly $0.20-$0.50/lb). It’s just hard to sell low-value chemicals like this because when prices are this low, the cost to transport the product (let’s call it $0.05-$0.10/lb) ends up being a large fraction of the delivered price, so you need to be close to your customer.

In principle I like electrolysis as a means of reducing CO2 because it has the lowest theoretical energy cost (thermochemical processes aren’t particularly efficient, they just scale well on the CapEx side), and when your feedstock is free, almost all of your OpEx is energy, so it’s the only lever we really have to reduce production costs. After that it really just comes down to getting creative with your product.

Anyways, all of that is just a prelude to this news: OCOChem, a Washington-based startup using CO2 and water to produce formic acid via electrolysis, just signed a deal with ADM to set up their first demonstration-scale plant at ADM’s ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois. This is a big deal in the world of chemicals! And while the market for formic acid isn’t particularly enticing, if the technology works well at ethanol-plant-scale I have faith in ADM and OCOChem’s joint ability to develop a market for formic acid or some derivative of it. [LINK]

Other Things Happened:

Corbion just signed an agreement to develop Astaxanthin from algae fermentation. A graphene producer is moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas. Sumitomo started up its pilot-scale ethanol to propylene plant. Eastman Chemical is going to build a cellulose acetate yarn manufacturing facility in China. CPChem finished building its low viscosity PAO expansion in Belgium. Clariant is expanding its portfolio of plastics stabilizers. Imperial Oil just started making renewable diesel at a refinery in Canada. IFF is selling its soy and lecithin business to Bunge. LG Chem and Eni broke ground on South Korea’s first renewable diesel and SAF plant. BASF and CATL signed an agreement related to cathode active materials. Anellotech is looking to commercialize it’s proven plastic-waste-recycling technology. SNF acquired Midland-based Obsidian Chemical Solutions.