In Germany, BASF introduced CircleStar, a new dehydration catalyst to process renewable feedstocks.
The firm said that this news catalyst achieves a 99.5% selectivity for the ethanol-to-ethylene (E2E) conversion. With an operating temperature that is more than 25°C lower compared to conventional processes, CircleStar helps to decrease the carbon footprint in the bio-ethylene value chain for products ranging from jet fuel to plastics by more than 10% while keeping the same performance, BASF said.
The German company noted that the advanced performance of this catalyst is due to its star shape that maximizes the active geometrical surface area for the reaction.
“Our novel CircleStar for the bio-ethanol to bio-ethylene conversion has excellent product properties and helps our customers to significantly increase their production efficiency while reducing carbon emissions and supporting their net zero targets,” said Detlef Ruff, Senior Vice President, Process Catalysts at BASF.