The green chemical plant of the future
Carbon is a key building block of the chemical industry and the starting point for a wide range of products, including polymers, fuels, medicines and ingredients for cosmetics. Today, however, the vast majority of this carbon comes from fossil sources. For a sustainable transformation of the chemical industry, it is therefore necessary to develop new technological approaches that harness alternative carbon sources and convert the carbon obtained into established, high-value products: the green chemical plant of the future. This approach is summarised as Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU), i.e. the capture of carbon dioxide and its material use as a carbon source.
The DISCO₂ funding call
To drive forward the development of relevant technologies, the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is funding a total of 13 research projects, as well as an overarching supporting project, under the DISCO₂ call for proposals – Disruptive Approaches to the Industrial Use of CO₂. As part of the BMFTR’s research strategy for sustainability, the projects address various aspects of the CCU value chain. The projects are designed so that their results complement one another and collectively contribute to the industrial use of CO₂.
This website provides an overview of the funded projects, highlights current developments and research findings, and encourages visitors to get in touch and network.
Carbon sources and research approaches
There are essentially three sources of sustainable carbon: the recycling of carbon-containing products, biomass and the natural environment. Research within the DISCO₂ framework focuses on the latter sources, whereby ‘environment’ refers to the air, water bodies and industrial point sources. Innovative processes for capturing CO₂ are complemented by a wide range of technologies that enable the captured CO₂ – often in combination with hydrogen – to be further processed and converted into chemical products.
