The waste gas and key contributor to climate change CO₂ can be recycled and used as a raw material and substitute for petroleum. A pilot plant has come on stream at Bayer’s Chempark Leverkusen, Germany, to trial this process on a technical scale. The plant produces a chemical precursor into which CO₂ is incorporated and then processed into polyurethanes that are used in many everyday items.

The process is the result of the “Dream Production” project, a collaboration between industry and science. Bayer is working on the project with the energy company RWE, which supplies the CO₂. At its Coal Innovation Center near Cologne, Germany, the company operates a CO₂ scrubber where the CO₂ is separated from the flue gas.

Other project partners are RWTH Aachen University and the CAT Catalytic Center, which is run jointly by the university and Bayer. The researchers recently achieved a break-through in laboratory-scale catalysis technology which makes it possible to put CO₂ to efficient use, for the first time.

If the testing phase goes well, the industrial production of plastics based on CO₂ should start in 2015.

• Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany