From fossil to green chemicals: sustainable pathways and new carbon feedstocks for the global chemical industry

摘要: Following current trends, the global chemical industry is set to become the largest consumer of fossil fuels. Among energy intensive industries, the chemical industry is one of the most challenging to defossilise due to the abundance of cheap fossil fuel-feedstocks and it is currently responsible for roughly 3% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Unlike other energy-intensive industries, the chemical industry cannot be made fully sustainable directly with renewable electricity and green electricity-based hydrogen (e-hydrogen). Therefore, new green carbon feedstocks must be developed to defossilise the production of large volume organic chemicals. The most promising green carbon feedstocks are electricity-based methanol (e-methanol) and biomass-based methanol (bio-methanol), which can be used directly or as a feedstock for olefin and aromatic production. Increased recycling of plastics will reduce the …