Dow embarks on decarbonization journey to net zero emissions

TERNEUZEN, Netherlands—Just a year ago, Dow Inc.'s Benelux operations announced that it had drawn a roadmap to reduce current CO2 emissions from its Terneuzen, the Netherlands, operations by more than 40 percent by 2030 on its path to achieve net CO2 neutrality by 2050.

The company recently organized a press tour of the site, during which information and insights were provided into the progress made on this carbon reduction flagship project.

Dow’s Terneuzen site is the second largest production location in the world. In fact, Dow is the third largest chemical company in the world, behind BASF and Sinopec, said Kepa Diaz di Mendibil, EMEAI Operations Vice President.

“The Terneuzen site has 4 million metric tons of emissions per year. Reducing this number is the most complex project ever implemented at the site,” he said. “These emissions are generated mainly by the three steam crackers at the site, and from our own power plant. The roadmap to CO2 neutrality is therefore structured into Generations 1, 2 and 3.”

According to the roadmap, the Terneuzen site will reduce some 1.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions in Generation 1—equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 300,000 cars. The key will be to use clean hydrogen to fire the crackers instead of gas. An ethylene cracker, said Diaz di Mendibil, is fed with naphtha, propane, butane or LPG, to produce ethylene, propylene, some benzene and some aromatics.

“But, in the cracking process, off-gas is generated as a byproduct. In the traditional design of a cracker, this off-gas has energy content; it is therefore recycled and is used in the furnaces and the boilers to create the steam needed for the cracking process. That process occurs at temperatures of 800-1,000°C and yields ethylene, propylene, benzene, butadiene and, again, off-gas—which, when you fire it, generates CO2.”

The idea is therefore to remove the CO2 from the off-gas, which leaves behind clean hydrogen that can be fired in the boilers and furnaces without generating CO2, the company said. This requires the development of technology and the modification of the furnaces and boilers.

This is currently ongoing, both at Terneuzen and at the Dow site in Fort Saskatchewan. At both sites, the company is investing in autothermal reforming technology to convert the off-gas from the cracker into clean, circular hydrogen for fuel in the process, replacing the natural gas or other fossil fuels currently used.

The CO2 from the ATR will be captured and stored until alternative technologies are developed, and Dow will also look for ways to enable usage of the CO2 in its processes rather than storing it. As senior process automation specialist Kees Biesheuvel pointed out in his presentation: “We want to sell carbon as part of our building blocks for customers, so we want to turn it into product, eventually.”

He noted that while many of the NGOs with whom Dow is in discussion are not in favor of carbon capture and storage, they are also realistic.

“They know that we cannot go forward without CCS for the time being, but we have told them that while our plans temporarily utilize CCS, our interest is not to put carbon under the ground.”

The plans will require the construction of a clean hydrogen plant as well as additional investments in site infrastructure for CO2 liquefaction, air separation, hydrogen distribution and CO2 transport. The hydrogen plant is expected to start up in 2026.

The project also will create green jobs. Building the new hydrogen plant and the associated infrastructure is expected to create 3,500 to 4,000 engineering and construction jobs over a period of three years and 400 to 500 permanent jobs at Dow, in the region and across associated service providers, the company said.

If Generation 1 was all about "freeing up the hydrogen for firing in our furnaces," as Kees Biesheuvel phrased it, Generation 2 is about replacing a number of the gas turbines in the cracker with electrical motor drives.

These gas turbines drive the compressors, and while they are very efficient, they also generate CO2 emissions, said Diaz di Mendibil. 

“If we have access to green energy, we can replace the gas turbines with electrical motors. And these are driven by green electricity,” he said.

By replacing the gas turbines by electrical motor drives and by capturing CO2 from its ethylene oxide plant, Dow will be able to avoid a further 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year by 2030.

The third and final phase of the plan will develop and implement additional breakthrough technologies to replace fuel usage in the production processes.

“One way we are doing this is through collaborations, among others, with Shell,” said Diaz di Mendibil.

The two companies recently completed the construction of an e-cracking furnace experimental unit that they are running at the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam. Over the next year, the experimental unit will be used to test a theoretical electrification model developed for retrofitting the gas-fired steam cracker furnaces used today. Data generated by the unit will be used to validate the model and allow the electrification program to advance to the next phase; the design and construction of a multi-megawatt pilot plant, with potential start-up in 2025, subject to investment support.

“Obviously, because Terneuzen is the largest and the most relevant site in Europe, it will be the No. 1 in implementing e-cracking,” Diaz di Mendibil said. “But what we're developing now is not exclusive for Terneuzen. We will be rolling this out across all the sites to reach our decarbonization goals.”

Decarbonizing a site like Terneuzen is site a huge challenge.

“The site can be compared to a huge organism, where everything is connected to everything else. It makes it very complex, as each plant, each facility, is an organ within the larger whole,” said Kees Biesheuvel. “The challenge dazzled us.”

Ultimately, with the help of the computer, the three-generation plan started to emerge, he added.

The plan also allows Dow the time it needs to align its R&D with finding an output for its off-gas, as even e-cracking generates this—“Because you're still heating the raw material to 800 or 1000 degrees.”

“In our project, electrical cracking will arrive at the same time as new technologies to use the captured CO2 for chemical production,” said Diaz di Mendibil. “We actually feel like we are pioneers; and while it is not easy, it is very motivating.

“This will be by far the largest investment ever made in the site, and we're doing it because we obviously think there will be a return on this investment. And the return will go to the customer—providing CO2-reducing benefits to our customers and the value chain.”