Elastomer feedstocks get more sustainable with Lanxess, TotalEnergies development

COLOGNE, Germany—The path to more sustainable production of rubber feedstocks like styrene just got a bit clearer.

Specialty chemical company Lanxess said Jan. 7 that it will partner with France-based TotalEnergies S.E. for a more sustainable equivalent of styrene, which typically uses petroleum in its production.

Using proprietary technology from TotalEnergies, the process will use tall oil as a feedstock for styrene production, a material derived from tree oil (and which is a by-product of pulp production).

Lanxess has a target date of 2050 for "fully climate-neutral" raw material usage, like biocircular styrene, which the company uses to make sustainable ion exchange resins for wastewater treatment and chemical process flows.

"Our customers are increasingly asking for sustainable solutions, and raw materials with a low carbon footprint are a key lever here," said Marcel Beermann, head of global procurement and logistics at Lanxess. "By partnering with TotalEnergies, we can further expand the respective offering for our customers."

Perhaps most importantly, the sustainable styrene is able to be tracked through the mass balance approach (as set by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification standards).

With this method, the certified and non-certified materials are mixed physically, but monitored separately from an accounting standpoint.

"We are pleased to form this partnership with Lanxess, which demonstrates TotalEnergies' ability to offer sustainable products to its customers, helping them reduce their carbon footprint," said Jean-Francois Renglet, vice president of the marketing Base Chemicals Division at TotalEnergies. "This is a perfect illustration of the orientation taken ... to develop lower carbon intensity products, in line with TotalEnergies' climate ambition to get to net zero emissions by 2050, together with society."

Lanxess added that the ISCC Plus certification of the more sustainable styrene is an important milestone, since Lanxess uses the same transparency standard for all its raw materials.

Other sustainable equivalents for fossil raw materials that Lanxess produces include biocircular acrylonitrile (also used for an ion exchange resin), the composite Tepex Scopeblue (based on flax and polyactic acid) and Durethan Scopeblue, a high-performance plastic that uses biocircular cyclohexane and waste glass.

Recently, the Science Based Target Initiative confirmed that Lanxess' green targets are in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

On the road to 2050, Lanxess will look toward increased sourcing of sustainable raw materials that are bio-based, which originate from a recycling process, or are produced with renewable energy.