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Celanese Corporation CE and Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials (“MCAM”) have collaborated to develop mechanical recycling solutions for post-industrial and post-consumer sources of polyoxymethylene (POM), also known as acetal copolymer. The initiative is in the light of customer requests for recycled content options and carbon dioxide reductions, which will also maintain product consistency, quality and performance.
The companies plan to gauge possible options to convert waste streams into marketable, end-product formulations so that Celanese can deliver sustainable alternatives for scrap or end-of-life waste with assurances of closed-loop material reuse.
In November 2020, Celanese introduced POM ECO-B, a sustainable polyacetal product featuring a mass-balance, bio-based characteristic enabling customers to cut down carbon dioxide emissions in their end-use products. Despite POM ECO-B’s commercial availability, presently, many customers and industries lack the readiness to adopt the biomass balance approach.
The joint venture advances Celanese’s sustainable product offering by initiating a recycled content option of its Hostaform/Celcon POM product, to be marketed as POM ECO-R. MCAM will be responsible for conducting the recycled feedstock collection, separating and processing, while Celanese will be providing the technology for formulation and production capability. The company seeks to offer its customers POM ECO-R solution that will have a recycled content of up to 30%.
Celanese noted that the collaboration, which utilizes waste products, makes POM’s utility broad-based and extends its usage as an engineered material promising to achieve sustainability goals.
MCAM stated that its investment in closed-loop opportunities for post-industrial and post-consumer POM waste streams earlier, along with the new partnership, will empower it to offer customers a wide range of options to help achieve their sustainability goals.
Celanese shares have grown 25.9% over the past year compared with the industry’s 11.2% rise. The company’s estimated earnings growth rate for the current year is pegged at 140%.
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In its third-quarter earnings call, Celanese stated that demand for its products remains strong in most end markets as it enters the fourth quarter. It expects pent-up demand across Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain units to more than offset any impact of typical year-end seasonality. Notwithstanding the sourcing and logistics headwinds, the company expects to deliver fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of roughly $5.00 per share.
With the anticipated closing of the Santoprene acquisition in the fourth quarter, Celanese expects to have deployed more than $2.7 billion in 2021 for mergers and acquisitions, organic investments and share repurchases. The company said that these actions position it well in a strong demand environment to deliver adjusted earnings of at least $15.00 per share for 2022.