Fortum has been granted EUR 1.5 million in funding from Business Finland to accelerate the development of the Carbon2x concept, a novel way to recycle materials.
The Carbon2x concept, launched by the company in April 2022, aims to capture emissions from waste incineration and turn them into CO2-based, high-quality raw materials. It will help reduce dependence on fossil-based raw materials, improve Europe’s self-sufficiency, and decarbonise waste incineration.
“We are very excited and pleased about the funding decision that will help us accelerate the development work of our three-year research project. The pilot stage, which has just ended, was one of the first steps in testing how to utilise the CO2 emissions from our Waste-to-Energy plant in Riihimäki to produce new sustainable materials. The next target is to use our own ‘home-grown’ methane as a feedstock for producing special plastics. The funding will support us in this work,” says Tony Rehn, Carbon2x Programme Director, Fortum Recycling & Waste.
The funding news follows the successful conclusion of the pilot that recently ended at Fortum’s Waste-to-Energy plant in Riihimäki. The pilot placed Fortum among the first companies in the world to have successfully captured its own CO2 emissions and used the emissions to produce methane.
“The CCU pilot that was up and running in Riihimäki over the spring and summer proved that the CO2 emissions of waste incineration can be used to make new materials. Our pilot was successful in capturing 15 litres of CO2 per minute and converting it into 10 litres of methane,” Rehn says.
The target of the Business Finland-supported three-year research programme is to evaluate different technologies and processes together with SME partners and research institutes in order to find the most feasible technologies for producing special plastics in the future. At the same time, Fortum foresees piloting different CCU technologies and solutions in its other Waste-to-Energy facilities in the Nordics in preparation for a possible large-scale industrial demo plant that could potentially begin in 2024–2027.
