Fossil raw material the platform for making the world go round

From oil to plastic

It all begins with a mixture of 17,000 constituents. Crude oil is the traditional starting point for the many
plastics that are essential to modern life. Approximately five percent of worldwide oil production is used to
make plastics. The products of numerous intermediate steps are high-quality precursors that can be used,
for example, to make foams found in countless everyday items.

Its a long way from crude oil to plastics: many intermediates are needed for the final products.

Oil makes the world go around. Created millions of years ago from dead marine organisms, it is the primary source
for some 40 basic chemicals on which 40,000 chemical products are based.
They are used to make fertilizers, medicines and, as mentioned above, even plastics, which are characterized by
their wide diversity and broad spectrum of applications.
Plastics are born of tremendously high temperatures. At refineries, the crude oil is heated and broken down into its
constituents.
One constituent is straight run gasoline, or naphtha. Its primary components are the elements carbon and hydrogen.
The long hydrocarbon chains are broken down further in the steps that follow. The result is a diverse array of
substances, including ethylene, propene, benzene and toluene. Benzene, for example, is needed to produce plastics
such as polyester, polystyrene and polycarbonate.
Main ingredients
It is also a key starting material for the polyurethanes, another class of polymers that occurs in a wide variety of forms.
These include flexible foams, from which upholstered furniture, mattresses and automobile seats are made, and rigid
foams, which are most commonly used as an insulating material for buildings, refrigeration appliances and piping.
The automotive industry, shoe manufacturers and the electrical and electronics sector also need polyurethanes. A
total of some 13 million tons of polyurethanes were processed worldwide in 2010.

Two ingredients have to come together at the end of the many individual steps to make polyurethane: polyols and
isocyanates. The latter determine the fundamental properties of the foam. If MDI (diphenylmethane diisocyanate) is
used, rigid foam is produced. TDI (toluene diisocyanate) is used to produce flexible foam. Bayer MaterialScience
produces vast quantities of both raw materials worldwide.
MDI is obtained from benzene; TDI is based on toluene. The first step in the production of isocyanates is to mix both
substances with nitric acid. Amino groups are created in a subsequent reaction with hydrogen gas. In the last step,
these amino groups react with phosgene, a chemical for which large quantities of chlorine are required.
New processes
One byproduct of phosgene production is hydrochloric acid, in turn used to produce chlorine, which can then itself be
reused in a particularly efficient and environmentally friendly process developed by Bayer MaterialScience.
Ethylene and propene come into play with the other component of polyurethane the polyol. Oxygen is first added to
both substances to oxidize them and form epoxy compounds, which react in turn with alcohols, for example. The
result is a wide range of polyols of different chain lengths that in the end are mixed with the isocyanates.
At present, a limited number of polyols can be produced from renewable raw materials such as starch, cellulose or
lignin, which can be obtained from food and wood waste. Bayer MaterialScience is also testing a new process in
which a portion of the oil-based epoxide is replaced by carbon dioxide.