🏭 The Column: December 6, 2024

Good morning. Today we’re talking a bit about some CO2-based carbonates that are used in lithium-ion batteries, an agreement between a seed designer and a potential SAF producer, and a new plastic sorting plant.

Things Happened:

CO2-based carbonates for batteries

Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical (Sailboat)—who operates the world’s largest single train methanol-to-olefins plant—just started up a new 38 KTA ethylene carbonate (EC) and 70 KTA dimethyl carbonate (DMC) plant in China. EC is made by reacting ethylene oxide (EO) with CO2, and DMC is made via the transesterification of EC with methanol (and Sailboat was already making methanol). Demand for both EC and DMC has risen dramatically because these carbonates are widely used in lithium-ion batteries. (The electrolyte is typically a salt of lithium dissolved in a solvent that transports lithium ions across the battery cell. That solvent is usually EC or made from EC and DMC.) Maybe we’ll see more EC capacity built in the US soon as well—right now the only EC plant is owned and operated by Huntsman in Conroe, Texas. [LINK]

Corteva and BP’s feedstock agreement

BP isn’t currently one of the main renewable diesel or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) producers, but they’ve invested in other biofuels (renewable natural gas, specifically) and seem to be set on making SAF at some point. Corteva, the DuPont spinoff, develops proprietary seeds that typically have some sort of special pest or weather resistance, or some other valuable property. Those seeds can be used to produce oil crops that can then by hydrotreated to make SAF. So Corteva basically wants to give farmers seeds, promise farmers that they’ll buy their crops for a certain price so that they can then go sell them to an oilseed crusher, like Bunge. (I mention Bunge because Corteva recently collaborated with Chevron and Bunge to get a special canola crop to market—one that can grow in the US Southeast instead of colder climates.) There’s no mention of an oilseed processor in this announcement, but it sounds like it went pretty well with Chevron and Bunge if they are now convincing BP to try something similar. [LINK]

Another Cyclyx plant is coming

Cyclyx was spun out of Agilyx’s attempt to commercialize a polystyrene depolymerization process, and is now jointly owned by ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, and Agilyx. Now the company is focused on the collection and sorting part of the plastic waste problem because that’s the current bottleneck in the molecular recycling of plastic waste—pyrolysis reactors don’t like when the input composition varies widely, so we need to make sure our plastic waste is sorted as perfectly as possible. Just before Thanksgiving they announced plans to build their second site in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Now, in combination with the Houston-based plant they announced one year ago, Cyclyx will be able to process 300 KTA of plastic waste. All of which will presumably be sold to ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell so they can depolymerize it and blend it into their steam cracker feedstocks. [LINK]

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Other Things Happened:

The first lithium hydroxide plant in South Korea just finished construction. Elkem scored a grant from the EU to develop CO2-free silicones. Japan’s Ube decided to increase its production of high purity nitric acid for semiconductor applications. Solvay just started up another biomass boiler at its soda ash plant in Germany. The US’s ARPA-E is launching a program to fund the removal of critical metals from wastewater.