🏭 Chlorine, CO2, same thing

Good morning. LG Chem's electrolytic cell is good, but not good enough to go to Mars.

From the condenser:

· LG Chem's CO2 electrolyzer

· Phillips 66's renewable refinery

· MOTD: phenol

LG Chem wants CO2 to be CO

LG Chem and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that they developed a process for the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.

Why would you do that?

With the exception of some novelty polymers, like Covestro's polycarbonate polyols, carbon dioxide is a pretty useless feedstock. On the other hand, carbon monoxide is actually used to make all sorts of chemicals and materials. If you mix it with hydrogen it can be used to make methanol (which then becomes formaldehyde, acetic acid, and more) or it can be used to make hydrocarbons via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (like ethylene, propylene, and more).

Ok, so what's the deal here?

The reactor LG Chem is talking about is some sort of electrolytic cell, or a stack of cells, that reduces carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. This isn't a brand new concept—we actually have a carbon dioxide electrolytic cell on Mars right now. Plus, we use electrolytic cells at an industrial scale to make aluminum and chlorine. LG Chem's announcement can really just be summed up as "our cell has higher than ever efficiency so we're going to try to scale it up".

Bigger picture:

For what it's worth, LG Chem isn't the only company looking to do electrolysis on carbon dioxide. There's a California-based company called Twelve who is working on it as well. They actually won an award for their process a couple of days ago.

Phillips 66 finally sent it

US-based refiner, Phillips 66, made its final investment decision (FID) to move forward with its plan to convert its refinery in San Francisco into a renewable fuels refinery.

Catching you up:

We first heard about Phillips 66's plans in this newsletter's infancy—way back in August of 2020. Six months later, the company announced that Worley would be completing the front-end engineering design (FEED) for the project. Now, a year later, the board of directors has signed off on the project and is prepared to spend $850 million getting it done.

What are they doing?

The new renewable fuels refinery will process used cooking oils, fats, greases, and vegetable oils into 800 million gallons per year of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. That involves many of the same hydrotreater and separation units used to process petroleum (plus piping and other infrastructure). So, the plan is to retrofit as much of the old refinery as possible and then fill in the gaps with new units.

Zooming out:

Phillips 66 isn't the only one getting into this renewable fuels thing. Marathon Petroleum is doing it too. And we just saw World Energy announce plans to produce 340 million gallons per year of renewable jet fuel. All of that is happening in California where margins are highest (because of Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits and other tax incentives).

Some more headlines:

• Technip Energies and Saulsbury landed the EPC contract for Exxon's CCS expansion in Wyoming

• High crack spreads are driving up refinery utilization in the US

• Evonik announced some plans for the next phase of its transformation

• KBR will build out some green ammonia pilot plant in Japan

• Kraft Heinz is considering a move to paper Ketchup bottles

Product of The Day:

Today's MOTD is the one you've been asking for…phenol.

First extracted from coal tar by a German chemist in 1834, the world is now producing nearly 12 million tons of phenol each year. While the molecule got its start as an antiseptic, today it is primarily used to make BPA(about 50%) and phenolic resins (about 30%). The rest becomes alkylphenols, a precursor to nylon, and adipic acid (here's a reference chart).

Pretty much all of the phenol produced is made by the cumene process which conveniently produces the other BPA monomer—acetone. Quite a few different companies produce phenol, but Ineos is responsible for about 1/3 of the world's production. While most of the world's phenol is made in Asia, the largest US producers include, Shell,SABIC, andOlin.

In case you're interested:

• Safety Moment: Chevron's Richmond Refinery caught fire in 2012—take a moment to learn why.

• Course: Want a complete overview of the major petrochemicals and how we make them? This will cover all the bases.*

• Article: This is a good read if you want a quick introduction on how to gauge the profitability of a refinery.

• Tip: If you like this newsletter but want some non-chemical business news, look no further than Morning Brew.*

The bottoms: