Development of Technology to Manufacture Functional Plastic Materials from CO₂ Moving to Full Implementation in 2024 and Beyond under NEDO’s Green Innovation Fund

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC) proposed a project on the “Development of Technology to Manufacture Functional Plastic Materials from CO₂” in response to a call for proposals by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the Green Innovation Fund. The proposal was adopted in February 2022. MGC then completed the construction of a pilot plant at its Tokyo Research Laboratory in November 2023 to start full-scale development of the production technology in 2024.
The Green Innovation Fund was launched under the leadership of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry with a total budget of ¥2 trillion, and began calling for proposals in energy and other fields around the spring of 2021. One such field was “Development of Technology for Producing Raw Materials for Plastics Using CO₂ and/or Other Sources,” for which multiple joint research teams were selected to implement various projects. “Development of Technology to Manufacture Functional Plastic Materials from CO₂” was among these projects, and the research consortium formed for the project was led by Tosoh Corporation. Its members include, in addition to MGC, the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Catalytic Chemistry of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST); Professors Keiichi Tomishige and Yasuhiro Fukushima of the Tohoku University Graduate School of Engineering; Professor Masazumi Tamura of Osaka City University’s Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis; and Colcoat Co., Ltd.
The consortium obtained a total of ¥20 billion in subsidies. Tosoh and MGC will set up research facilities at their own sites and will be responsible for process development of raw materials for polyurethane and polycarbonate respectively. Because it is tough, clear and lightweight, polycarbonate has wide-ranging applications and is commonly found in automotive meter panels, cover films for game machines and smartphones, and optical lenses.
“We initially started R&D to make diphenyl carbonate, a raw material of polycarbonate, from CO₂ in 2014. Tohoku University and Nippon Steel published their findings from basic research in this field around that time, which led us to join their research. Since then, we have continued joint research with many partners,” said Hidefumi Harada, who has led the development of this production technology as Senior Research Manager of MGC’s Tokyo Research Laboratory.

You may wonder what is so impressive about this joint research. The answer is given by Takashi Fujii, a Senior Manager for Engineering Plastics Division, Specialty Chemicals Business Sector of MGC:
“To combat global warming, it is essential to reduce CO₂ emissions, as we all know. In this regard, our joint research can contribute in two ways. One is by enabling the containment of CO₂ as a raw material and the production of plastic materials from it. The other happens during the production of diphenyl carbonate, a raw material of polycarbonate, and this is the ability to minimize energy consumption for production, which means less CO₂ emissions.”

CO₂ is all around us, and it is hard to transform CO₂ into other substances, as it is a stable inorganic compound. However, MGC has successfully developed a production engineering process that uses CO₂ as a raw material. This process emits less CO₂ during production and is even cost-effective.
This achievement was derived from basic research by Tohoku University and Nippon Steel. They discovered a catalytic reaction system and used it to succeed in making CO₂ react with alcohol. MGC joined them, and has since striven to find ways to industrialize their basic research results. Harada describes the efforts as follows.
“A general assumption is that converting CO₂ into a chemical requires enormous energy.
However, the process of synthesizing a carbonate compound through a reaction between CO₂ and alcohol requires little energy because it is an equilibrium reaction that proceeds at a high rate as long as the water produced as a by-product is efficiently removed.
Although the process itself is energy-efficient, the challenge lies in removing the generated water from the reaction system, which is very time- and energy-consuming.
Various companies have tried to address this problem through R&D, with researchers racking their brains to find a desirable way to remove water from the reaction system. Our process uses a certain organic compound as a dehydrant to move the equilibrium reaction forward. By establishing a technology to remove water from the dehydrant and then from the reaction system with low energy consumption, we have successfully developed a production process for a carbonate compound that takes place in a very short period of time, while achieving a high yield and producing less by-product.”

The team spent nearly 10 years to accomplish these research results. A key milestone was reached in 2020 with the application of a unique technology created by MGC. That year, the team participated in the NEDO Feasibility Study Program, and the outcome of their efforts was praised by outside experts and MGC colleagues alike. As a result, the team won major support from the company and joined a project under the Green Innovation Fund. Research in the project further led to a technological breakthrough.
“Tohoku University was also working on this, but in their process, it took about 400 hours to remove water from the reaction system. Longer time means higher cost and energy, raising hurdles for industrialization. However, our breakthrough made it possible to remove water from the reaction system in less than one second. We made tens of thousands of attempts before reaching this final solution. We always valued closely observing what was happening in the experiments to notice even the smallest phenomenon and pondering why it happened. When the experiment succeeded, I drank a toast with the three researchers in the team,” recalled Harada.

The development of this production technology is world-leading and the first of its kind in Japan, representing an extraordinary achievement. This came at a time when it had been suggested that the team quit, as the project had been prolonged and was struggling to earn approval from the head office. However, Harada and his team refused to give up and eventually attained their goal. An additional driving force behind the results was Japan’s Carbon Neutrality Declaration, which was made in October 2020 under the Suga administration with the goal of realizing a decarbonized society. It sets forth the target of reducing Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
“The development of this production technology can have an enormous range of applications, not only for polycarbonate but also raw materials for polyurethane and materials for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. Going forward, we see enormous potential for climate change applications in automotive, electricity and other fields,” says Fujii.
At the current stage of development, the fundamental issues have been resolved, and the team is working on how to scale up the production process and how to incorporate it into the real world.

MGC has strengths in four of the five major engineering plastics: polyamide, polycarbonate, polyacetal, modified polyphenylene ether and polybutylene terephthalate. These are highly versatile plastics, being applicable to wide-ranging items, from daily necessities to industrial goods.
MGC made a new breakthrough in the business focused on one of them, polycarbonate. Under the consortium, construction of a new pilot plant will begin at MGC’s factory in 2025, with completion expected by 2027. After that, the project will move toward real-world implementation in view of licensing and alliance formation.
“For real-world implementation, value for money needs to be considered. There are some hurdles ahead, but we intend to overcome them,” said Fujii.

Additionally, MGC has another project adopted by the Green Innovation Fund, which involves the methanol business. Together with its collaborators, the company is working on the development of production technology in this field as well. This means that MGC is pursuing two green innovations, with the other being the development of technology for producing diphenyl carbonate, a raw material of polycarbonate.
MGC aims to eliminate the need for phosgene, a conventional raw material of plastics like polycarbonate, from relevant production processes by 2030, thus reducing CO₂ emissions from phosgene production. The firm also strives to reduce the cost of producing polycarbonate and other plastics in the phosgene-free processes to a level comparable to existing products, while improving the functionality of these plastics based on the technology to convert CO₂ into a raw material for plastics production. For this purpose, MGC will conduct pilot production of several hundred to several thousand tons of plastic per year.
“MGC has continued research to produce carbonate compounds to be used as raw materials for polycarbonate since the late 1980s and managed to pave the way to commercialize the results. My team and I really feel rewarded as researchers,” Harada said.
Their ultimate goal is to advance this production technology research to the development of high-performance polycarbonate. MGC intends to develop and demonstrate specialty chemicals manufacturing technology for polycarbonate on a commercial scale, with a view toward helping Japan achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. “In Japan, natural disasters are becoming more intense every year, and the recent rise in the frequency of such disasters poses a serious concern. This year again, it is very likely that we will see at least one natural disaster. Climate change is an imminent crisis. With future generations in mind, we will maintain our commitment to ensure that new green innovations will continue to emerge from the realm of the chemical industry,” said Fujii.