By Dede Williams

Polyolefins major Borealis (Vienna; www.borealisgroup.com) has agreed a deal with US eFuels supplier Infinium eNaphtha (Sacramento, California; www.infiniumco.com) that the European partner says will allow it to produce low-carbon plastics from waste CO₂ emissions.

The California firm, which claims to be the world’s first supplier of commercial volumes of eNaphtha, billed as a “sustainable drop-in alternative” to the traditionally fossil-based plastics feedstock, plans to ship commercial-scale volumes of the product from its domestic Pathfinder production site at Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, to Borealis’s site at Porvoo, Finland.

Related: Borealis plans to invest EUR 4.5 mn in Porvoo cracker

Project Pathfinder is a continuously operating plant producing synthetic, ultra-low carbon eFuels that can be used in heavy-transportation applications and chemical processes. The first shipments left the Texas site in May this year.

“As both a technology innovator and a project developer, we have end-to-end control of the eFuels production process”, says Infinium eNaphtha CEO Robert Schuetzle. “This gives us a constant feedback loop that enables us to rapidly accelerate additional projects and scale our global production of eFuels”.

Related: Alternatives to fossil-based naphtha needed to meet sustainability goals

The renewable fuels are made from captured carbon dioxide and green hydrogen in a patented process that uses catalysts and on-site electrolysers and according to Schuetzle generates no process emissions. The end product contains no sulphur.  

Plastics made from Infinium eNaphtha can be produced using the same facilities and manufacturing equipment and recycled in the same way as a conventional naphtha-based product, the company – which by its own account has “more than a dozen”  additional projects under development across the US, the EU, Japan, and Australia – stresses.

Related: Pyrolysis oil as potential alternative to naphtha in crackers

The Corpus Christi facility has received certification under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC Plus) standards that ensure the traceability of the sustainably produced feedstock from its point of origin throughout the entire chain of custody.

Mirjam Mayer, VP Circular Economy Solutions at Borealis, touted the partnership with Infinium as “an example of how innovators can collaborate toward novel solutions to meet growing consumer demand for circularity and defossilisation”.