The pan-European research project Carbon4PUR takes the next step in investigating how waste gas from the steel industry can be turned into chemicals for valuable plastics. Now, the consortium starts evaluation of the ideal conditions for industrial-scale testing in southern France where a steel mill of ArcelorMittal and a chemical plant of material producer Covestro are close neighbours. On a laboratory-scale, the Carbon4PUR project has so far shown promising results with first plastic precursors having been obtained from flue gases such as CO2. 

The consortium invites representatives from industry, politics, media and authorities to a field trip on March 20 in the port city of Fos-sur-Mer next to Marseille to inform about the status and discuss the future infrastructure needed to scale up research under real industrial conditions. Fos-sur-Mer could be an ideal location for such a pilot plant. 

“We must consider waste as a resource. A cross-sector approach as pursued by the Carbon4PUR consortium is the right way to reach this goal”, says Dr. Markus Steilemann, CEO of Covestro. “Together, we can make more use of alternative carbon sources like CO2 in order to close the carbon loop and save direct fossil resources such as crude oil.”