Solutions for saving energy and combating climate change

Reducing vehicle weight, cutting energy consumption when paving roads, limiting cooling requirements in buildings: the Arkema group focuses its innovation efforts on products that help win the battle against climate change.

Reducing vehicle weight

The Arkema group is tackling global warming and climate change by developing strong, lightweight materials. When used in vehicle construction, for example, such materials reduce overall weight and therefore the fuel consumption of the vehicles. That translates to lower CO2 emissions in the transport sector.

 

The Group’s main innovations in this area are: 

  • Nanostructured PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) to replace glass,
  • Rilsan® as a substitute for metal,
  • Acrylic and polyamide composite thermoplastics.
A lighter car consumes less fuel and thus rejects less CO2 by kilometer

Reducing energy consumption in buildings and the public works sector

Three yellow soil compactor trucks wheeling on a recent tar road

Asphalt for road paving must be heated to 160-180°C to achieve the necessary fluidity for spreading. That means significant energy consumption and costs.
CECA, a subsidiary of the Arkema group, developed Cecabase RT®, a range of chemical additives for “warm-mix asphalts”. In this process , the asphalt becomes fluid at a temperature of only 120°C, reducing energy consumption by 20 to 30% and significantly diminishing the dust emissions.

In the building sector, the Arkema group developed Kynar Aquatec® resin, a water-based formulation used as an ingredient in white paint for cool roofs. In regions with lots of sunlight, cool roofs can sharply reduce the building cooling energy load. These paints, which have a much longer service life than conventional paints, earned the Arkema group the Pierre Potier prize in 2010.

The Arkema group also combats climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its own production plants.

The climate challenge

       

Source : National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now deems that the rise in global temperatures observed over the past fifty years is indeed due to human activity. Emissions of certain greenhouse gases (GHG), which include CO2, have long-term effects on the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. The result is an increase in global temperature and a rise in sea levels.