The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action is providing German chemical company BASF up to €310 million ($336 million) for the construction of an industrial heat pump billed as the world’s most powerful to date.
The planned heat pump will have a capacity of up to 500,000 metric tons of steam per year. It will use waste heat, generated during the cooling and cleaning of process gases in one of the two steam crackers at BASF’s Ludwigshafen site in western Germany, for CO2-free steam production.
Most of this steam will be used in the production of formic acid, with some supplied to other BASF production plants via the steam network on site.
Following the funding approval, BASF now plans to begin the preparatory construction work, with construction scheduled for the first quarter of next year. The plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2027.
“Incorporating new technologies into our chemical production processes is one of the key components of the green transformation at BASF,” said Markus Kamieth, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. “And our heat pump even has a unique selling point: the planned plant will be the first of its kind to be used for steam generation – there are no comparable industrial pilot projects anywhere in the world.”
BASF says the heat pump has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 98%. It has set a target of achieving net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
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