CEPSA supplies Unilever with

RENEWABLE NEWS CEPSA supplies Unilever with first batch of LAB

Spanish chemicals firm Cepsa Química has supplied consumer goods giant Unilever with its first batch of renewable linear alkylbenzene (LAB), a surfactant used to manufacture cleaning and laundry products.

The company said it used a Mass Balance approach to create its NextLab LAB, blending and co-processing traditional black carbon sources with those from plant-based sources, known as green carbon.

These sources were tracked during the production process to ensure that an appropriate volume of the green carbon content was in the final LAS surfactant, Cepsa said on 20 July.

“This way of manufacturing surfactants is not only the most viable, short-term alternative to purely fossil-carbon derived products, but it also constitutes a vital stepping stone in the shift from petrochemical to renewable feedstocks,” the company.

Unilever would use NextLab to produce linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS), the world’s largest-volume synthetic surfactant and its key raw material for its household brands such as Persil, Cif and Sunlight.

Last year, Unilever’s home care business announced that it would replace 100% of the carbon derived from black sources in its cleaning and laundry formulations with renewable or recycled carbon as part of its Carbon Rainbow model.

According to its website, Cepsa Química produces LAB at its plants in Bécancour, Canada; Camaçari, Brazil; and Puente Mayorga, Spain. To read more on bio-based surfactants, go to p28

IN BRIEF

GERMANY: BASF said on 10 August that it had again reached its target of procuring 100% of its palm kernel oil (PKO) exclusively from from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)-certified sources.

The company purchased a total of 242,946 tonnes of certified sustainable PKO in 2021 and was now focusing on expanding its sustainability commitment to significant intermediates based on palm oil and PKO by 2025. These included fractions, primary oleochemical derivatives, and vegetable oil esters.

BASF added that it had also made further progress in developing transparent supply chains with almost 96% of its global palm oil footprint – totalling 441,107 tonnes – traceable back to the oil mill level.

The figures were published in the sixth edition of the company’s Palm Progress Report. German chemical firm BASF announced on 26 July that its portfolio now includes certified personal care ingredients based on coconut oil, following certification of its production site in Cassina Rizzardi, Italy.

BASF uses coconut oil to produce ingredients for food products, cleaning agents, cosmetics and detergents.

The company was certified under the Rainforest Alliance Mass Balance (MB) scheme. MB is a sourcing method that allows for certified and non-certified ingredients to become mixed during the shipping and manufacturing processes. Under this system, BASF ingredients can only carry the Rainforest Alliance seal if the amount of coconut oil it uses is equivalent to the amount it has bought from Rainforest Alliance certified farms.

“[This] fosters the physical flow of certified raw materials, while farmers benefit from selling Rainforest Alliance Certified coconuts and copra,” BASF said.

The certification of coconut oil was made possible by a partnership between BASF, Cargill, Procter & Gamble and German government agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, with support from the Rainforest Alliance and the Philippine Coconut Authority.

More than 4,100 coconut farmers were trained in good agricultural and processing practices between November 2015 and October 2018, with around 1,600 farmers gaining Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard certification following further training.

Farmers who were trained and certified had, on average, a 47% higher income than farmers who had not participated in the programme, BASF said.

BASF coconut oil-based ingredients certified

SASOL obtains sustainability certification for three sites

Global chemicals and energy firm Sasol Chemicals announced on 27 July that three of its largest manufacturing facilities in Europe had gained certification from the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system.

The company said its facilities in Marl and Brunsbüttel, Germany, and in Augusta, Italy, had earned ISCC-PLUS certification for the use of mass balanced bio-based and recycled feedstocks in the production of alcohols, ethoxylates, linear alkylbenzenes and derivatives – key building blocks in a wide range of cleaning, personal care and industrial products.

The South-Africa headquartered firm said its German facilities were using mass balanced (MB) bio-ethylene – made from plant-based biomass and waste – along with recycled ethylene, while its Augusta facility was using MB bio-benzene, recycled benzene and bio-recycled benzene. These MB feedstocks were mixed with fossil feedstocks, with end products containing an equivalent volume of sustainable materials.

Sasol’s performance chemicals business unit markets organic and inorganic commodity and speciality chemicals, including oleochemicals such as fatty acids and fatty alcohols.