CHIMEI Corporation announced that it is launching a Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) project as part of its ongoing development of sustainable materials. The CCU project will capture and convert CO2 from production processes into the main raw material in polycarbonate (PC) products. The new generation of fixed carbon PC products produced in this manner will help bring about circular sustainability. Phase 1 of the project commenced in May this year when CHIMEI partnered with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to leverage its portfolio of sustainable innovative technologies to develop a technology to covert CO2 recovered from CHIMEI’s flue gas into dialkyl carbonate (DRC), the main in-process material used in PC products. The technology is currently expected to be validated by the end of 2023. In the future, CHIMEI will use this precursor technology as the basis for developing the next-generation of fixed carbon PC products.

To realize circular recycling and carbon reductions in full, CHIMEI has been working with the supply chain in recent years to develop and use various sustainable materials, including mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and biomass materials. Our goal is to become the leading international partner in sustainability. The CCU project in particular is a key area of CHIMEI’s roadmap on development of sustainable material and the next wave of development.

Polycarbonate makes use of CO2 during the production process so it was selected as the first target for CCU. On the technical side, CHIMEI chose ITRI with its extensive portfolio of sustainable, innovative technologies as its partner. The new catalyst and reaction techniques developed by ITRI as well as CHIMEI’s years of experience in PC manufacturing and outstanding technical capabilities will hopefully lead to a new low-carbon technology for converting CO2 recovered from flue gas into DRC.

CHIMEI then plans to use the DRC output to synthesize diphenyl carbonate (DPC), then use the reaction between fixed carbon DPC with bisphenol A to obtain fixed carbon PC. All of the byproducts during the PC production process can be recycled as well. Once the technology is complete, the only raw material required for fixed carbon PC products will be CO2 recovered from flue gas and bisphenol A.

By upholding the green vision of “Clean & Green”, CHIMEI actively responds to global environmental sustainability issues. In December 2021, CHIMEI committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and became the first petrochemical company in Taiwan to respond to SBTi. With “Net Zero by 2050” as its goal, CHIMEI will propose short-term (2030) and long-term (2050) carbon reduction roadmaps within the year (the official requirement of STBi is 2 years).