For goals and planned key actions for 2024 and beyond, please refer to the full Combined Annual Report 2023.
Innovation is fundamental to Borealis’ ability to achieve its purpose of “Re-inventing essentials for sustainable living”. The Group is committed to developing technologies that will provide solutions to the most critical issues facing society, including climate change, pollution and increased energy costs.
Together with OMV Group, Borealis leads the industry in the transformation toward the circular economy, with zero CO2 emissions. The strategies of both Groups confirm their determination to achieve this transformation, supported by Borealis’ technology strategy. Specifically, Polyolefins looks to develop new high-performing materials, Hydrocarbons & Energy is identifying innovative approaches to using new renewable feedstock, and Circular Economy Solutions (CES) is developing technologies to use waste plastic as a crucial resource.
Borealis’ global innovation community is the Group’s technology powerhouse, employing more than 500 people in three Innovation Centers in Linz (Austria), Porvoo (Finland) and Stenungsund (Sweden). Other facilities essential for successful innovation include a Borstar® polyethylene pilot plant, a Borstar polypropylene pilot plant and a catalyst pilot plant, which are all in Porvoo.
The Vice President of Innovation and Technology leads the Innovation and Technology department. This is part of the Polyolefins organization, under the leadership of the Executive Vice President Polyolefins, Innovation & Technology and Circular Economy Solutions, who is a member of the Executive Board.
The main driver for an innovation project is an unmet market need that requires new products or technologies. Most innovation projects are therefore proposed by the Marketing or Technology Transfer organizations. Potential projects and their business cases are presented to a decision-making forum called the Innovation Portfolio Table. This consists of all relevant stakeholders, such as the Heads of Polyolefins, Sales and Marketing, Operations and Innovation. The Portfolio Table group decides whether to launch, stop or extend innovation projects, based on their potential, their success to date, their relevance to the strategy and sustainability, and resource availability. This means that potential risks are identified and mitigated. Projects are managed by a group of professional project managers, as described under Borealis’ Innovation Process below, and the project teams consist of researchers, engineers and marketing specialists. The closing of every project includes an evaluation that lists all opportunities and lessons learned, and the corresponding measures that have been incorporated.
The Group’s technology strategy is aligned with the Borealis and OMV Group Strategy launched in early 2022. It puts sustainability even more firmly at the center of Borealis’ approach to innovation, focusing on:
The strategy aims to push the boundaries of science to develop customer solutions with exceptional performance. This means understanding what the customer wants and leveraging the right competencies, tools and expertise to develop the best solution, with tailored customer service. Borealis maintains the competences it needs to implement its innovation strategy in-house or gains access to them through open innovation collaborations with other centers of competence.
The Base Chemicals business is following Borealis’ open innovation strategy in its partnership with OMV Group. Together, Borealis and OMV are looking to advance the monomer recycling of post-consumer plastics and the availability of renewable hydrocarbons, as a more sustainable feedstock for manufacturing polyolefins. The evaluation of monomer recycling technologies is ongoing, to obtain virgin polymer products based on feedstock from recycled plastics. Borealis also participates in the Cracker of the Future consortium, which is developing a new furnace concept using renewable and carbon-neutral energy sources rather than fossil fuels, to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
The importance of Borealis’ innovation strategy was confirmed by market developments and product launches in 2023, as described in the Activities 2023 section below.
Borealis’ innovation process comprises three main phases:
In addition to its internal collaborations, Borealis engages widely with relevant stakeholders. It is a member of the Dutch Polymer Institute, attends polyolefins industry conferences and publishes papers. Borealis’ Innovation and Technology management team and some of its lead scientists are invited to present at numerous leading conferences worldwide each year, such as the:
Borealis’ Innovation experts use every opportunity to participate in these gatherings, contributing with the highest level of research results and describing the Group’s successes in developing diverse technologies.
When pushing the boundaries of technology, Borealis needs to ensure it has strong intellectual property rights. These protect products and applications, and the Group’s position as a licensor.
Borealis has an extensive patent portfolio, comprising around 8,920 granted patents and around 3,199 pending patent applications. In 2023, Borealis filed 128 new priority patent applications.
The Group must ensure it can attract and develop the talent it needs. There is a diminishing talent pool available, which Borealis looks to address by attracting young people into the industry. Borealis raises its profile with talented individuals through the Borealis Student Award, which goes to the students with the best Diploma, Masters and PhD thesis. The Group also develops its own R&D talent, for example, through its Talent Expert Pool.
The launches in 2023 included a number of Daplen™ products servicing automotive customers. These materials bring the performance needed for inclusion in new vehicle models, enabling reduced weight. Borealis also introduced a talk filled grade containing 40% post-consumer recyclates, for use in manufacturing coffee machines and other small appliances. It provides a great balance between stiffness and impact strength, including at elevated temperatures. Borealis commercially launched nine new PO product innovations in 2023 (excluding grade modifications), demonstrating its market leadership in innovation and delivering on its Purpose.
Borealis commercially launched nine new PO product innovations in 2023 (excluding grade modifications), demonstrating its market leadership in innovation and delivering on its Purpose.
Borcycle™ transforms plastic-waste streams into value-adding, high-performance and versatile solutions for demanding applications. In 2023, Borealis launched two new products using its Borcycle M technology, which is based on mechanical recycling. The Group has successfully increased the recyclate content, while maintaining or improving the product properties.
The Group’s important activities in the year also included moving to the front-end engineering design phase in Borealis’ investment project for a new Borcycle M technology asset, at its Schwechat location.
During 2023, Borealis launched four new products made with renewable feedstock, as part of the Bornewables portfolio. Bornewables™ offers product properties equal to fossil-based product, allowing Borealis’ partners to quickly and easily transition from fossil-based polypropylene to a renewable feedstock-based polypropylene.
To accelerate progress towards circularity in manufacturing and using polyolefins, while reducing its CO2 footprint, Borealis continued to collaborate with organizations with complementary competencies in 2023. In particular, the Group participated in SPIRIT (Sustainable Plastics Industry Transformation), a collaborative research and development program driving the transformation of the plastics industry in Finland.
In 2023, Borealis’ Base Chemicals business faced an economic downturn and volatile feedstock prices, with subdued demand leading to low operating rates, putting integrated margins under pressure. Key innovation activities continued to focus on supporting the business. This included further optimizing catalysts for propane dehydrogenation, at improved sustainability and selectivity, and working with OMV Group on a series of investigations to improve operations.
The commissioning and start-up of a highly flexible steam cracking pilot installation has increased the Group’s capabilities for evaluating the cracking performance and value of new renewable and recycled feedstocks, from a wide variety of sustainable sources. The Group also developed analytical capabilities to evaluate pyrolysis oil from plastic waste, from its own sources and third parties, as feedstocks for crackers and refineries. The analytical equipment and methods have been transferred to Borealis’ operational sites.
A joint exercise with the Group’s Asset Technology team to benchmark plastics pyrolysis technologies has given Borealis insight into their viability and availability, and the specifics for site integration and greenfield or brownfield installations. Combined with a thorough evaluation of pyrolysis oil upgrading technologies, primarily hydrotreating/ hydrocracking, the Group has developed a clear understanding of the value chain and converting its own and third-party pyrolysis oil in its assets. Simultaneously, Borealis and OMV performed the first tests for processing pyrolysis oil from Borealis’ site in Ostend (Belgium) at OMV-Burghausen, demonstrating the Group’s capabilities and ambitions to become a key player in this value chain.
Together with Chalmers, its Swedish university partner, Borealis has started to conclude on a new technology for gasifying plastic waste directly to olefins. This would allow the Group to process plastic waste streams that are less clean or sorted, where the Group expects substantial advantages in feedstock pricing, one of the key cost drivers for chemical recycled materials. With the same partner, Borealis has also finalized a state-funded investigation of carbon capture solutions for post combustion decarbonization of some of the Group’s assets, particularly the cracker furnaces as key emitters of CO2 .
Finally, the development of new phenol-lignin blends suitable for producing plywood will allow for a lowest carbon footprint solution, using renewable phenol from Borealis’ Borvida™ portfolio.
Microplastics are plastic particles of less than 5 millimeters in diameter. They can be found in the environment, in the food and water we consume, and even in the human body. Borealis takes part in research programs that study the sources of microplastics and their potential impact.
CORNET “microplastics@food” and “microplastics@complexFOOD” Projects
Borealis’ has supported the EU-funded Collective Research Network (CORNET) project “microplastics@food”, which concluded in 2023. The project was led by the Food Cluster of Lower Austria and involved several high-level academic partners.
The project has developed harmonized and reliable detection methods for microplastics, which work well in clear liquids and solutions, as well as soluble food such as sugar or salt. An interesting result from the extensive mineral water study was that multi-use (returnable) glass bottles may contain many more microplastic particles than single-use PET bottles. The project also found that different types of particles appear along the beverage production and filling process chain, with filtration only safeguarding the product quality until the next step in the process.
The next project, “microplastic@complexFOOD”, has been approved and will directly follow “microplastics@food”, to ensure the continuity of research efforts. The new project will extend to more complex foodstuffs.
Plastics Europe Brigid Project
The Brigid project is studying the biological effects of microplastics on animals and humans. The multi-million euro project is financed by Plastics Europe and is being conducted by a consortium of independent scientific partners, coordinated by TNO, a Dutch research institute. The project will cover different levels of biological interaction, from the cell level to the full organism. In line with other polymer producers, Borealis is supplying polymer samples and expertise to the project, the results of which are intended for public sharing. The project will run until 2026 and is still in an early stage, as the production of large amounts of microparticles from commercial grades, with defined sizes between 1 and 100 µm, has proven more difficult than expected.
Borealis remains firmly on track to develop technologies that reduce the human impact on the climate by lowering CO2 emissions and enabling the reuse and recycling of plastics. One of Borealis’ most important innovation objectives is to enable the production, transportation and use of renewable energy. In addition, in 2024 Borealis will work on:
