Collaboration between Perstorp, Fortum and Uniper wins support from EU
The European Union Innovation Fund has selected Project Air, a unique production facility for sustainable methanol in Stenungsund, Sweden, as one of 17 large-scale green tech projects to be granted more than EUR 1.8 billion.
Project Air, which is a collaboration between Perstorp, Fortum and Uniper, has applied for EUR 97 million and the total investment is expected to amount to more than EUR 230 million.
According to a press statement, Project Air is “a gamechanger” for the chemical industry, moving from 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 is intended to reduce global CO2 emissions with close to 500,000 tons from today’s levels, corresponding to 1 percent of current emissions in Sweden.
Large-scale production by 2026
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.
Project Air will be built at Perstorp’s existing facilities in Stenungsund, strengthening the regional chemicals industry cluster, Hållbar Kemi 2030. The sustainable methanol from Project Air will be used to produce chemical products which in turn are used in a variety of applications in several industries and businesses. It’s ultimately about making thousands of end-products more sustainable, from paints and mobile screens to fabrics.
