At one of Europe's largest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is trialling the manufacture of a key product using sugar as a base material instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.
Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day,"a quarter goes directly into the chemical industry," said Walter Leitner, from Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade.Plastics manufacturer Covestro -- a former division of chemical giant Bayer -- started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen at the end of 2023, after laboratory tests.
Around six million tonnes of aniline are produced globally a year, around one million tonnes of it by Covestro. Janine Korduan, from environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture generates"CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and the production of fertilisers and pesticides", and also leads to"major losses of biodiversity and high water consumption".