JSW Steel and leading global resources company, BHP, are collaborating to accelerate deployment of carbon capture technology for steelmaking decarbonisation, following the signing of a joint study agreement between the parties.
Under this agreement, the parties will commence joint studies to explore the feasibility of Carbon Clean's CycloneCC modular technology to capture up to 100,000 tonnes per year of CO2 emissions – the largest scale CycloneCC deployment to date in steelmaking.
Indian steel producers are collectively the world's second largest, with production potentially doubling by 2030 against 2023 figures, and will likely have a critical role in achieving India's target of net zero by 2070. With the increasing commissioning of blast furnaces in India with decades of life ahead of them, supporting longer term near zero decarbonisation routes is essential. Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technology is anticipated to be a critical abatement to support a near zero CO2 emissions intensity for this process route, as well as potentially for other hard-to-abate industrial sectors.
There are several challenges with the adoption of carbon capture technology in the steel industry, including capital expenditure and ongoing operating costs, as well as the integration of new equipment into an existing operations site with space limitations. The CycloneCC rotating packed bed (RPB) technology in combination with Carbon Clean's proprietary APBS-CDRMax solvent aims to address these challenges through reducing total installed cost and the unit footprint by up to 50 per cent, and equipment that is ten times smaller in size than conventional carbon capture technologies.
This project is an important step towards supporting the scale-up of carbon capture, including understanding the potential performance, costs, and carbon abatement outcomes. It is anticipated that these joint studies will be completed during 2026, at which time the parties will consider installing CycloneCC at JSW Steel's Vijayanagar site in India's southern state of Karnataka. Utilisation – the ‘U' in CCUS – is a key component of the project. If the project is successful, JSW Steel intends to liquefy captured CO2 so that it can be sold locally.