Technip Energies and LanzaTech to work on sustainable ethylene
Tech firm Technip Energies and sustainable materials firm LanzaTech Global signed an agreement recently to create a new pathway to sustainable ethylene utilising their combined technologies. Together LanzaTech’s carbon capture and utilisation technology with Technip Energies’ Hummingbird technology transform waste carbon into ethylene, the most common building block in petrochemicals.
Ethylene is a building block for thousands of chemicals and materials, including plastics, detergents, and coatings that keep hospitals sterile, people safe, and food fresh. Its traditional production process is also one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions in the chemical industry and remains one of its most challenging processes to decarbonise. This new joint process uses carbon emissions as the starting point rather than virgin fossil carbon.
First, up to 95% of the CO2 in the flue gas is captured from the furnaces of an ethylene cracker and mixed with hydrogen. Next LanzaTech’s biorecycling technology transforms the captured waste carbon into ethanol. Finally, Technip Energies’ Hummingbird technology dehydrates the ethanol to ethylene.
Technip Energies and LanzaTech have collaborated on other sustainable solutions since 2020, including a partnership with Borealis and On, the Swiss running shoe company, to make EVA foam for the sole of running shoes.
Technip Energies also partners with LanzaJet, an independent company formed and spun off by LanzaTech, which includes the Hummingbird technology in the LanzaJet Alcohol-to-Jet process which makes sustainable aviation fuel from ethanol.
Arnaud Pieton, CEO of Technip Energies, stated: “We are very pleased to work with LanzaTech on another sustainable solution, this time to decarbonize ethylene. This breakthrough technology will not only capture carbon but will use it to make a valuable end product.”
Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, said: “By combining and integrating our process with that of Technip Energies, we have the potential to retrofit onto ethylene crackers around the world, supporting decarbonization of a sector that has limited choices today. The sustainable production of one of the most used commodity chemicals will have an impact on the lives of billions of people daily. Through partnerships such as this one with Technip Energies, we are creating meaningful pathways to break free from virgin fossil inputs for the things we use in our daily lives.”
