In response to growing concerns about the impacts of climate change, companies and industries are working to implement a variety of tools and technologies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This includes Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU), which encompasses a range of technologies that can play an important role in the journey toward a more sustainable and circular economy.
One company that is addressing the carbon emissions challenge head-on is Celanese, a chemical manufacturing company based in Irving, Texas. In early 2024, Celanese began operating one of the world’s largest active CCU projects at its Clear Lake, Texas, site as part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Celanese expects the project to capture 180,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and produce 130,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol per year.
The CCU process takes CO2 industrial emissions that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere from both Celanese and third-party sources and applies reduced-carbon-intensity hydrogen to chemically convert the captured CO2 into a methanol building block used for downstream production. This low-carbon input is then used to reduce the use of traditional fossil fuel-based raw materials and can help produce a wide range of end products across most major industries. Third-party sources account for more than 80 percent of the captured CO2.
By actively leveraging CCU, Celanese now offers low-carbon options across its Acetyl Chain and Engineered Materials products under the ECO-CC name to help meet the growing global demand for more sustainable and circular product solutions. These low-carbon products span a wide array of end markets, including consumer goods like adhesives, packaging, toys, paints, coatings and more. The ECO-CC products are transparently supported through mass balance tracking and life cycle assessment processes.
Within just a few months of starting up the project, the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) certified the low carbon CCU methanol under the ISCC Carbon Footprint Certification system. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management approved the company’s low-carbon acetic acid under the ECO-CC product name as a Utilization Procurement Grants vendor.
Celanese looks forward to continuing to build on this opportunity to illustrate the important role of CCU. To learn more about CCU technology at Celanese, watch this video or visit the Celanese Sustainability Offerings webiste.
