The EU Innovation Fund Will Support Perstorp’s Project Air

The Swedish production facility for sustainable methanol of Perstorp will employ recovered CO₂ and other residue streams.

Perstorp has recently announced that its Project Air, a production facility for sustainable methanol in Stenungsund (Sweden) will be supported by the European Union Innovation Fund, that will grant more than €1.8 billion to seventeen large-scale green tech projects.

Project Air, a joint collaboration between Perstorp, Fortum and Uniper, had previously applied for €97 million, and the total investment is expected to amount to more than €230 million. At full capacity, it will reduce global CO₂ emissions by 500,000 tons, corresponding to 1% of the current emissions in Sweden. The sustainable methanol produced from Project Air will be used to manufacture chemical products for a variety of applications in several industries and businesses.

“The Innovation Fund’s decision shows that Project Air is an important future investment for the climate. This is a crucial decision for Perstorp, our customers and partners, as it creates increased availability of sustainable chemical products throughout our value chains. The chemical industry needs the carbons, but it must be non-fossil carbons and they must be put into circular flows so we get rid of CO₂ in the atmosphere. I am proud to be the leader of a company that has the ability to drive such an industry leading transformation project,” has stated Jan Secher, the president and CEO of Perstorp.

Project Air is based on innovative usage of an already-existing technology in a large-scale industrial application. To produce sustainable methanol, the facility will employ CO₂ and other residue streams recovered from the ongoing operations of Perstorp, as well as biogas and hydrogen from electrolysis – which will use a wastewater treatment as feed water. So, all electrical energy will be renewable based.

The joint venture hopes to achieve large-scale production by 2026. The consortium of Project Air now enters the Grant Agreement Preparation process, which is to be completed during the fourth quarter. The project design and planning of the facility are being conducted in parallel.