Renewable raw materials inspire innovative high-performance polycarbonates

Renewable raw materials are a viable alternative to fossil feedstocks

Polymers are often still synonymous with fossil-based raw materials. To move to a circular economy, we need to replace fossil feedstocks and increasingly leverage alternative carbon sources to close the carbon loop. At Covestro, we’ve taken the next step forward in replacing fossil feedstocks in PC with renewable materials from biomass or end-of-life materials. Working together with our partner Neste, we will replace thousands of tons of fossil-based materials with renewable hydrocarbons made from waste, residual fats and vegetable oils. Thanks to being a drop-in replacement to commonly-used fossil feedstock in polymer production, Neste’s product (NEXBTL-technology) is suitable for our existing production processes and infrastructure, and enables us to produce more sustainable products with consistently high quality.

This development is part of our long-term vision for a plastics sector that plays a major role in driving the circular economy forward, reduces CO2 emissions and replaces the extraction of finite resources with a more sustainable cycle of growth, use and reuse.

Renewable hydrocarbons without changes to PC infrastructure

Our quest for alternative raw materials for PC naturally brought us to Neste, the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel fuel. After conversion to feedstock such as for example phenol, their renewable hydrocarbons can be fed into polymer manufacturing without the need to modify storage tanks or production plant infrastructure, such that production processes and quality levels remain consistent.

Renewable raw materials can flow through production and storage systems simultaneously with conventional ones, creating the need for smart allocation methods to meet this new complexity. Together with Neste, we are defining processes and milestones that allow for fully transparent accounting of renewable material flows. Here, a third-party-certified mass-balanced approach enables the quantity of renewable raw materials and their benefits to be allocated to specific products.