The world’s largest privately held industrial gases specialist, Messer, aims to start up a carbon dioxide (CO2) recovery plant in Austria in early 2024. The CO2 will be recovered from the flue gas of an industrial company using BASF’s OASE blue technology. Messer wants to use recovery and purification processes to make the gas available for reuse.

Messer will refine the recovered CO2 up to food grade quality and use it to increase supply reliability in Western Austria, South Tyrol, Eastern Switzerland and Bavaria, where Messer already supplies many customers with CO2. In the future, shorter routes will be used to supply them with liquid CO2 by tank truck. CO2 is a raw material in demand in the food industry, which has so far often been obtained for this use as a by-product from ammonia production. With the technology now in use, Messer can meet customer demand even better.

“Our plant and equipment construction expertise in combination with the OASE blue technology enables Messer to build and operate energy efficient, economical production facilities that recycle CO2,” says Dr Tarek El Hawary, Chief Technology Officer at Messer.

Andreas Northemann, heading BASF’s global gas treatment activities, said: “BASF’s OASE blue technology provides Messer with a reliable CO2 removal process with low energy demand. We are proud to work with Messer on this important project, implementing more sustainable technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and environmental impact.”