TOGETHER WITH

Good morning. Welcome to the January 2023 Round-Up! The goal here is to give you a chance to look back at what we talked about and to lean into a couple of topics that are worth some extra discussion.

But before we get into it, it's worth reviewing a couple of updates: The Column now has a Discord, a job board for startups, and a new referral program incentive (refer one person to gain access to the startup database!).

Okay—here's what we talked about in January:

• Jan 4th: Iran's methanol-to-ethanol plans and more VAM coming to India

• Jan 6th ($): Piedmont and Tesla's renegotiation and coal-based-MEG

• Jan 11th ($): Coal gasification for fertilizers and Origin's tax-exempt bonds

• Jan 13th ($): Mont Belvieu's newest fractionator and Lukoil's Italian refinery

• Jan 16th: Flare gas to methanol and Borealis' molecular recycling acquisition

• Jan 18th ($): Braskem's bio-based polypropylene and Solvay's rice husks for tires

• Jan 20th ($): SABIC's rights to nitrogen electrolysis and ADNOC's sequestration plans

• Jan 23rd: PureCycle's European plant and sulfuric acid in the Czech Republic

• Jan 25th ($): Plasma-induced CO2 reduction and Citroniq's bio-based polypropylene

• Jan 27th: Syzygy's photocatalyst demo and Holiferm's biosurfactant plans

• Jan 29th: Origin finished its first site and Cabot is making more carbon black

• Jan 31st ($): Exxon's blue H2 plans and Eneos' electrochemical MCH

SPONSORED

Need to hire a ChemE or looking for a ChemE job?

There’s no shortage of recruiting firms out there, but very few exclusively serve the chemical processing industry—Sun Recruiting is one of the few. Over the last decade, 20 of their clients have relied on them to fill 5 or more of their open positions. And if you’re a chemical engineer looking for a role, they can help too.

Not looking right now? It’s still worth checking out their website. They have several resources for ChemEs, including the 2023 US ChemE Salary Report (yours free with contribution of your data to the project!).

Give them a call at (630) 474-9643, email Adam Krueger, or visit their website to see current openings.

What to remember:

1. Sometimes it makes sense to make ethanol from natural gas.

2. Somehow ethanol is our best route to bio-based olefins.

3. You can do weird things with plasma and photocatalysts.

Let's talk about making ethanol from methanol first: this one is interesting because we normally make ethanol by fermenting some sort of starchy crop. Generalizing here, but for the most part: in North America that tends to be corn, in South America and Southeast Asia it's sugarcane, in Central and Eastern Europe it's wheat, and in Western and Northern Europe it's beets.

Regardless, we do this because unlike most molecules, the bio-based route is cheaper than the petrochemical route. That hasn't always been the case—Union Carbide was dehydrating ethylene back in 1930, Shell did it better starting in 1947, and LyondellBasell operated an ethylene-to-ethanol plant in Illinois until 2021.

But as you all know, feedstock pricing varies widely by region because some regions have favorable geology (what raw materials are beneath your feet) and geography (access to markets and climate effects), both of which matter a lot when transportation costs (moving materials requires infrastructure) are high.

So, in Iran's case, it actually makes sense to start from natural gas, do some steam methane reforming, convert syngas into methanol, and then convert that methanol into ethanol. That's probably because of Iran's anti-alcohol laws, their semi-arid climate (geography), and their salty soils. All of which have made them rather disadvantaged when it comes to producing ethanol.

Fortunately, they have no shortage of natural gas, so those economics work in their favor.

Now going a little downstream: somehow ethanol is our best route to bio-based olefins? We talked about this twice last month with respect to propylene, once from Braskem's point of view ($), and once from a startup's point of view ($).

In both cases the story is the same. Polypropylene producers want a way to make polypropylene from a sustainable feedstock, but, just like ethylene, we haven't found a better way to get there without going through ethanol. This is partly a function of molecule size, and partly a function of trying to make an olefin.

Basically if your desired molecule length is very short, you either need to start with something long and break it down, start with something even smaller and connect it, or start with something roughly the same size. Obviously this is an oversimplification, but it's a useful model for thinking about why it's hard to make our two favorite olefins sustainably: we really don't have that many options when you're trying to piece together 2-3 carbon atoms and 4-6 hydrogen atoms.

The olefin thing is really just to say that if you can't make ethylene or propylene directly via some enzymatic pathway, you're probably going to end up dehydrating ethanol or propanol, because for whatever reason cells like to make alcohols (if you're familiar with why alcohols are predominant here, fill me in).

Surely genetic engineering advances and enzyme engineering will open options up a bit more, but this is currently where we are.

This should strike you as very weird—how could it be possible to profitably convert ethanol into ethylene, and also to profitably convert ethylene into ethanol? Maybe that's why LyondellBasell's plant (mentioned in the above section) was shut down a couple of years ago, or maybe it's because that bio-based polypropylene will be priced at a premium.

Shifting gears to alternative reactions: this is inherently more science-y, but it's not something chemical engineers learn in undergrad, so it's worth a little extra attention.

The classic tradeoff in the world of chemical manufacturing is the fight between kinetics and thermodynamics. A reaction might benefit from higher temperatures (better rates), but the thermodynamics of that reaction might benefit from lower temperatures (better conversion).

In real systems, it's never as simple as one potential reaction and one potential end state, so there's a selectivity aspect here that we're ignoring, but you don't need to solve multiple differential equations in your head to get a feeling for this.

The reason that this battle between kinetics and thermodynamics exists is because if you want a reaction to happen, you need to break existing bonds before you can form new ones. Even if the end state is more thermodynamically stable, if you don't provide enough energy to break those initial bonds, it's not going to happen. Wood doesn't spontaneously combust. But if you give it enough energy to get going, it will keep combusting until the necessary reactants are depleted.

That's why plasma-based catalysis is really interesting. Usually we apply thermal energy, which excites electrons, and breaks those bonds—with plasmas, we don't need to apply as much thermal energy because you're basically adding a new reactant: electrons! (again, oversimplification, but useful for thinking).

It's worth reading about how Evonik wants to use plasma to reduce CO2 ($), and how Syzygy is trying to commercialize a novel catalyst that's covered with plasmonic nanoparticles.

Want to join a startup?

The Column partners with the most disruptive companies to find the best talent. In case that happens to be you, check out some of the open roles:

• A post-Series D startup is shortening the value chain by combining enzymatic and metal catalysis, and needs a bioprocess engineer for tech transfers and scale-ups. (Houston, TX)

• A early-stage company is developing a sustainable route to acrylonitrile and is looking for engineering management. (Oakland, CA)

• A post-SPAC company scaling carbon-negative PET just finished building their first site, and needs an engineer to support research and product development in the lab. (Sacramento, CA)

If any of those roles sound interesting, or if you'd like to be considered for future opportunities, take 2-minutes to join The Column's talent pool.

Sponsor | Take The Survey | Archive

Join The Discord

Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up here.