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JSW, Carbon Clean, BHP to forge greener future in steel production

The trio will explore using CycloneCC, Carbon Clean's plug-and-play technology, to capture up to 100,000 tons of CO2 annually, marking its largest use in steel production yet

JSW, Carbon Clean, BHP to forge greener future in steel production
[Source photo: Chetan Jha/Press Insider]

Leading Indian steelmaker JSW Steel Ltd has tied up with carbon capture solutions provider Carbon Clean and global resources firm BHP to hasten the shift to greener ways of manufacturing steel.

The trio will explore using CycloneCC, Carbon Clean’s plug-and-play technology, to capture up to 100,000 tons of CO2 annually, in what will be the largest implementation of the system in steel production so far.

Indian steel producers, currently the world’s second-largest, could see their output double by 2030 when compared with 2023. The scale of growth positions them as key stakeholders in helping India reach its net zero emissions target by 2070.

As India continues to commission new blast furnaces with long operational lifespans, setting up sustainable, near-zero decarbonization strategies becomes crucial.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology is expected to play a critical role in achieving near-zero CO2 emissions intensity for steel production and could also be crucial for other industries that are difficult to decarbonize.

However, the adoption of carbon capture technology in the steel industry faces several hurdles, including high capital and ongoing operational costs, and the challenge of integrating new equipment into existing facilities with limited space.

The CycloneCC rotating packed bed (RPB) technology, when paired with Carbon Clean’s proprietary APBS-CDRMax solvent, seeks to overcome these obstacles by cutting both total installation costs and spatial requirements by up to 50%, and using equipment that is 10 times smaller than traditional CCUS technologies, JSW Steel said in a statement.

This initiative is a crucial step toward enhancing the expansion of carbon capture, including assessing the potential performance, costs, and outcomes for carbon reduction, JSW Steel said, adding that the collaborative studies are expected to conclude in 2026, after which the partners will evaluate the feasibility of deploying CycloneCC at the steelmaker’s Vijayanagar site in Karnataka.

“We are studying multiple pathways for steel decarbonization, including through use of hydrogen and renewable power, but we recognize that the blast furnace route will likely remain a pathway for the production of steel, particularly within India,” Rag Udd, BHP’s chief commercial officer, said.

“We remain committed to transforming our sustainability vision into reality and have already achieved a reduction of carbon emissions intensity by 30% against our 2005 baseline,” Jayant Acharya, joint managing director and CEO at JSW Steel, said.

“At JSW Steel, we aim to further reduce our steelmaking intensity to 1.95 tons of CO2 per ton of steel by 2030 and achieving net neutral carbon emissions by 2050. We believe CCUS could be a financially viable decarbonization lever which would be crucial to achieve near zero emissions in the steel sector,” Acharya said.

“The potential impact of carbon capture in decarbonizing the steel industry will be huge. First-of-a-kind projects are key to advancing technical innovation, providing valuable learnings that will benefit the entire steelmaking sector, as well as other hard-to-abate industries,” Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO at Carbon Clean, said.

“Decarbonization pioneers and early adopters of our modular CycloneCC solution will play a vital role in accelerating progress, with the aim for this technology to be fully commercialized and rolled out at scale,” Sharma added.

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