UK industry giants initiate £5.4M carbon waste conversion project

06 Feb 2023 --- UK industry giants, universities and NGOs, including Unilever, Society of Chemical Industry (SCI), BASF and 12 others with a total net worth of £73 billion (US$87.9 billion), have initiated a two-year program worth £5.4 million (US$6.5 million) dubbed Flue2Chem, aimed at converting industrial waste gasses into environmentally sustainable materials for use in consumer products.

The project will focus on replacing fossil fuel stock with captured carbon from waste gasses from foundation industries such as metals, glass, paper and chemicals. Unilever’s Home Care business has piloted products using captured carbon emissions, such as OMO laundry detergent in China, Sunlight hand dishwash in South Africa and Coral+ laundry detergent in Germany.

The project aims to help the UK reach its net zero targets by 2050. The partners say that the goal of the Flue2Chem Project is to demonstrate how the UK could cut 15 to 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year.

“This is a game-changing opportunity to accelerate action and rewire the chemicals value chain to be less reliant on fossil fuels,” says Flue2Chem’s project lead Ian Howell, Unilever’s Home Care Science & Technology R&D director and chair of SCI’s sustainable materials consumer product group.

“It’s a bold ambition and one that, at Unilever, we have been publicly calling for action over the last two years. No single company can do this alone.”

Alternative sources
The UK imports substantial amounts of carbon-containing feedstocks annually in the consumer goods industry, with the majority of carbon employed to manufacture plastics, cosmetics, synthetic textiles and other products sourced from coal, oil and gas.

“Underpinned by circular economy thinking, the Foundation Industries and their supply chain partners are bringing forward a range of new innovations as they move toward a sustainable competitive future,” says Bruce Adderley, director for the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge at Innovate UK.

“But these need to be demonstrated at scale if they are to be rapidly deployed in the UK and taken to international markets. That is why we are delighted to be able to support projects like Flue2Chem, which have huge potential to address decarbonization through multi-industry collaboration focused on resource and energy efficiency.”

Consortium for CO2 reduction
Flue2Chem secured the funding worth £2.68 million (US$3.2 million) from Innovate UK via the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge.

Apart from Unilever, BASF and SCI, the partner organizations are Tata Steel, Croda, Johnson Matthey, UPM-Kymmene, Holmen, the University of Sheffield, the University of Surrey, Carbon Clean, Proctor & Gamble, the Centre for Process Innovation, the Confederation of Paper Industries, and Reckitt.

“The great thing about Flue2Chem is not only the innovation, which is addressing decarbonization, resource efficiency and the circular economy piece but the fact that it is a terrific example of how you can bring the whole supply chain together to deliver on the innovation needed,” says Adderley.

“It no longer makes sense to work in individual silos. The foundation industries are facing challenges that cannot be tackled in isolation.”Bruce Adderley, Innovate UK director at the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge.

The project will also develop the basis for a new business model involving partners across the supply chain. “This project has a total of 15 partners from different sectors and is effectively testing out a whole new potential supply chain, something that has not happened before,” shares David Bott, head of innovation at SCI.

Bott details that the first challenge to tackle is collecting CO2 from the flue gasses from the paper and steel-making sectors. “Then we will move on to developing routes for turning the CO2 into a recognizable feedstock. There are a number of routes that can be explored to achieve this.”

Carbon capture and utilization in personal care
Curbing CO2 levels provides new opportunities to industry players aiming to reduce their carbon footprint and reach their 2030 climate goals. An international team of scientists from Cornell University previously found a sponge-like material that can trap CO2 in its pores. 

“Production of small molecules such as ethanol and other perfumes could benefit the beauty industry,” Phillip Milner, assistant professor of chemical and chemical biology at Cornell University, told PersoncalCareInsights.

Meanwhile, Beiersdorf addressed the ubiquitous demand for planet-conscious skincare products in its skincare launch, which harnessed CO2 recycling technology to power its operations, resulting in Nivea Men Climate Care Moisturizer.

Carbon capture and utilization is an emerging technology set to transform how companies and governments pursue climate goals. Using the technology, manufacturers can prevent waste carbon from entering the atmosphere, using it to produce ingredients like ethanol. This can then be used to create products like perfume or cosmetics packaging.

By Radhika Sikaria