Building on the results of the Forest Cump project launched in 2022, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, LUT University, in collaboration with a number of companies, have opened a pilot plant in Espoo, Finland. At the plant, process captured carbon dioxide is being processed into compounds that can replace fossil raw materials in plastic products and chemicals.
In Finland, using bio-based carbon capture is one of the ways being explored to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Due to its extensive forest industry, Finland has a huge potential to utilise bio-based carbon dioxide. Outside the Nordic countries, large sources of bio-based carbon dioxide are rare,” noted Juha Lehtonen, Research Professor at VTT.
The Forest CUMP research project, an effort conducted by research partners VTT and LUT University investigated how bio-based carbon dioxide from the forest industry and waste incineration could be captured and converted into products such as polypropylene and polyethylene. The name is an acronym for Forest Industry Carbon dioxide Utilization for Materials and Plastics.
The project’s results are now being put into practice with the opening of the new pilot centre. The new plant, called Bioruukki has been built in sea containers in the pilot centre in Espoo, Finland.
"Finland has huge potential to be one of the leading countries in utilising bio-based carbon dioxide," says Juha Lehtonen, Research Professor at VTT.
"Finland produces around 30 million tonnes of bio-based carbon dioxide per year. If captured and converted into products, Finland could become a major producer and exporter of polymers and transport fuels made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen."
The Forest CUMP project has been implemented in close cooperation with business partners as part of Business Finland's Veturi ecosystem, which supports sustainable development by increasing research, development and innovation investment in Finland. Veturi is the Finnish word for Locomotive. Borealis is one of the Veturi companies. Forest CUMP is part of Borealis’ SPIRIT programme, which is pushing for green transition in the plastics industry.
"This is a significant development project to support our vision of capturing and utilising industrial carbon emissions by producing long-lasting or fully recyclable plastic products that can sequester carbon for a long time," said Ismo Savallampi from Borealis.
Other participants in the project were Neste and ABB, as well as Metsä Spring, Kemira, Vantaa Energy, Stora Enso, Kleener Power Solutions, Carbonreuse Finland, Fortum and Essity.
The project studied the entire production chain from carbon capture to ethylene and propylene production. Ethylene and propylene are the raw materials for polyethylene and polypropylene. At this stage, they are produced at VTT Bioruukki from flue gas carbon dioxide. In the future, the technology can be brought into production wherever bio-based carbon dioxide is produced, such as in the forest industry or at waste incineration plants.