Monolith, a leader in clean carbon black production, signed a collaboration agreement and letter of intent (LOI) with The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, one of the world's largest tire companies. As part of the agreements, Monolith expects to collaborate with Goodyear on the development and potential use of clean carbon black produced at its expanding Olive Creek facility in Hallam, Nebraska.

Monolith’s Olive Creek 1 facility in Hallam, Nebraska.

Monolith’s carbon black enables manufacturers such as Goodyear to meet sustainability goals and demand for clean materials.

Monolith expects to begin construction on its expanded Olive Creek facility in 2022, with completion scheduled for 2025. Once complete, Monolith’s Olive Creek facility will produce 194,000 tonnes of cleanly made carbon black annually, along with 275,000 tonnes of clean ammonia. When fully commissioned, the facility will be the largest manufacturer of carbon black in the US and the first built in the country in more than 50 years.

Carbon black is an essential material found in countless everyday products, but perhaps most notably in tires. Conventional carbon black is produced by burning decant oil or coal tar, releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Monolith, through its proprietary pyrolysis process, has developed and perfected a new technology that uses renewable electricity to convert natural gas into high-purity carbon black and hydrogen.

This clean, environmentally responsible process creates nearly zero local emissions and significantly reduced life-cycle emissions overall. Through Monolith’s methane pyrolysis technology, the company is able to prevent an estimated 2.3 tons of CO2 from being released for every ton of carbon black produced compared to traditional manufacturing processes.

Monolith’s expanded facility is projected to save nearly 1 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere compared to traditional carbon black, hydrogen and ammonia manufacturing.

Monolith’s Olive Creek 1 commercial-scale facility is the first of its kind and the first carbon black production facility to be constructed in the United States since the 1970s. Monolith was founded in 2012 and first began producing carbon black on a commercial scale in 2021. Along with carbon black and clean hydrogen, the company announced in late 2020 its plans to produce clean ammonia at a second phase production facility in Nebraska.

Posted on 10 December 2021 in Manufacturing, Market Background, Materials, Natural Gas, Tires | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sounds good - but where do you get the renewable electricity from ? And how many hours / day do you operate this and of those, how many are running on renewable electricity ? What are the carbon emissions like if you are using normal Nebraska grid mix ?

Posted by: mahonj | 10 December 2021 at 02:07 AM

Good questions @mahonj, Monolith wants to use 100% Renewable Power. Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) NPPD and Monolith signed a letter of intent outlining the companies’ intentions to procure enough renewable energy resources to generate 2 million megawatt-hours annually. From: https://norfolkdailynews.com/news/nppd-seeing-high-interest-in-renewable-projects-for-monolith/article_b2e43d90-e199-11eb-8e96-fbde421b154c.html “The approximately 2 million megawatt-hours of generation would create a sufficient number of renewable energy certificates to meet 100% of Monolith’s average annual energy usage . . .”. The RFP, issued in January, resulted in bids for wind, solar and energy storage projects. In 2020, Nebraska obtained 51% of its in-state electricity net generation from coal, 24% from wind, 17% from nuclear power, 4% Hydro, and 4% NG (EIA.gov).

Posted by: gryf | 10 December 2021 at 11:35 AM

Where is the “Turquoise” H2 going? Ammonia production which would be valuable in Nebraska. KBR’s Energy Efficient Ammonia Technology Selected by Monolith Materials for New Process with Zero CO2 Emissions https://www.kbr.com/en/insights-news/press-release/kbrs-energy-efficient-ammonia-technology-selected-monolith-materials

Posted by: gryf | 10 December 2021 at 11:38 AM

You should not really need any outside power but maybe the hydrogen is worth more as a feedstock for ammonia and other chemicals than the cost of the electric power to replace it.

Posted by: sd | 10 December 2021 at 12:47 PM

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