🏭 Fancy salts

Good morning. Don't take the picture for the first news item seriously—we do not make these lithium salts by harvesting piles of it in the desert. Although lithium production is sort of like that.

From the condenser:

· Arkema's battery salt

· KBR's molecular recycling investment

· MOTD: ethylene

Arkema is getting into electrolyte salts

French specialty chemical company, Arkema, and Japanese chemical company, Nippon Shokubai, have announced plans to form a joint venture for the production of lithium salts near Lyon, France.

What are they making?

Batteries are primarily composed of a cathode, anode, electrolyte, and separator. The separator, which is typically a permeable membrane soaked with liquid electrolyte, prevents contact between the cathode and anode while allowing for the transport of ions across the cell. The liquid electrolyte is composed of multiple lithium salts and other additives in an inorganic solvent (like Huntsman's ethylene carbonate). Arkema and Nippon Shokubai are planning to make one of those salts—lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) at this site by 2025.

Spelling it out:

Historically, the primary salt used in that electrolyte has been lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6). LiFSI has been used as an additive to improve the battery's low temperature performance, lifetime, and storage stability. Now, there is increased interest in using LiFSI as the primary salt instead of LiPF6 for liquid electrolytes and an interest in using LiFSI in solid electrolytes (for futuristic solid state batteries).

Zooming out:

There are a couple of things worth noting here. First, on a volume-basis, the electrolyte isn't the primary consumer of lithium in these batteries (that's the cathode). Second, the move to produce this electrolyte in Europe is a new development. These battery value chains have traditionally unfolded in Asia, but since EVs will be produced in Europe there is now a driver to produce battery materials in Europe (just to minimize supply chain costs).

Mura just landed a $100 investment

US-based EPC company, KBR, has decided to make a $100 million equity investment in process technology company, Mura Technology, because of their proprietary molecular recycling process.

The context you need:

When we say molecular recycling, we're referring to a bunch of different technologies that recycle waste plastic at a molecular level. Sometimes that means purification (like PureCycle's color extraction) and sometimes it means depolymerization. When we talk about depolymerization it's either the depolymerization of a specific plastic (like Eastman's methanolysis) or it's the depolymerization of mixed plastic waste (typically by pyrolysis). Mura's molecular recycling process is the exception to that rule. They are depolymerizing mixed plastic waste by hydrothermal catalytic cracking instead of pyrolysis.

Catching you up:

KBR's investment shouldn't be a surprise since they are the exclusive licensing partner for Mura's technology. And while we have yet to see Mura's technology in action, their first site should be starting up at the end of this year, and they are getting a lot of attention from the petrochemical players. They've signed agreements with Dow Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical, LG Chem, and CP Chem (and now KBR).

Bigger picture:

All of these petrochemical companies are looking to make some of their olefins (for making polymers) with a plastic-waste-based feedstock instead of a petroleum-based feedstock. Many of them want to be using about a million tons per year of plastic-waste-based feedstock by 2030. That means billion dollar plants being built every year. That may sound like a lot, but remember, we make about 400 million tons of plastic each year (so if they all reach their goal, we might displace 3% of the demand by 2030).

Some more headlines:

• Avient expanded their portfolio of fatty-foot-contact polymers

• Some students at UT Austin used AI to discover an enzyme that breaks PET down quickly

• Iberia Airlines used sustainable aviation fuel for the first time in Spain thanks to Repsol

• LG Chem and KEMCO established a JV for battery metal precursors

• Linde Engineering is going to expand a polypropylene plant in Slovakia

Product of The Day:

Today's MOTD is the one you've been waiting for…ethylene.

First discovered by this manin 1669, chemists have been playing with this molecule for quite some time. The term, olefin, has it's origin story in the fact that when ethylene is combined with chlorine it produces Dutch oil(which made ethylene an oil-making gas—or as they called it: olefiant gas).

The simplest alkene is also the most widely produced organic compound in the world, with a global production of roughly 200 million tons per year. About 60% of that becomes polyethylene (HDPE 28%, LLDPE 18%, LDPE 14%), 18% becomes ethylene oxide, 11% becomes EDC (that's Dutch oil), and 5% becomes ethyl benzene.

This flowchart paints a better picture.All of that ethylene is made in one of three ways—steam cracking ethane and propane, steam cracking naphtha, or catalytically cracking gas oil. The main companies doing the cracking are your huge petrochemical companies like ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, SABIC, Ineos, and many more.

In case you're interested:

• Safety Moment: Leverage this flowchart to help with logically identifying chemical reactivity hazards.

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

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

• Podcast: Check out this episode about a BASF trainee working as a process engineer.

The bottoms: