New project to develop sustainable methanol for chemical industry

Project Air, a cooperation project with Perstorp, Fortum and Uniper, is taking significant next steps in developing sustainable methanol for the chemical industry. The project has been selected for funding by the EU innovation fund.

Project Air aims to move the chemical industry from using fossil raw materials to recycled and bio-based feedstock, thereby enabling sustainable chemical products to a large variety of industries and end products.

At full capacity, it will reduce global CO2 emissions with close to 500,000 tons from today’s levels, corresponding to 1 percent of current emissions in Sweden.

Project Air is based on innovative usage of existing technology in a large-scale industrial application. To produce sustainable methanol, the facility utilises significant amounts of CO2 and other residue streams recovered from Perstorp’s ongoing operations, biogas from new dedicated plants together with hydrogen from a new large electrolysis plant. Further, existing wastewater treatment will be utilised as feed water for the electrolysis. All electrical energy for the combined project will be renewable based. The ambition is to start up large-scale production by 2026.

The consortium behind Project Air now enters the Grant Agreement Preparation process, which is to be completed during the fourth quarter. The consortium has applied for EUR 97 million and the total investment is expected to amount to more than EUR 230 million.