Canada’s cement industry is set to get a first-of-its-kind commercial carbon capture and utilisation facility, with Carbon Upcycling Technologies in partnership with Ash Grove, a North American cement company, breaking ground on a carbon capture unit in Ontario, Canada.
Carbon Upcycling is providing its patented technology which will permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the Ash Grove’s cement kiln. The technology will allow the production of a high-quality low-carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) based on steel slag sourced from a nearby steel manufacturing facility. The SCMs can then be used to produce low carbon cement.
The facility, which is slated to produce up to 30 000 tpa of SCMs, is due to become operational during 2026.
Supporting Canada’s climate and clean manufacturing goals the project, known as Carbon 1 Mississauga, is backed by Canada’s Government with up to Can$10 million ($7.6m) in federal funding.
The funding comes from three key Canadian programs: the Next Generation Manufacturing’s Sustainable Manufacturing Program; Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Low-Carbon Economy Fund; and the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.
Other stakeholders in Carbon 1 Mississauga include CRH Ventures, the venture capital arm of CRH, a global business which develops and provides building material solutions and owns several companies including Ash Grove.
Eduardo Gomez, head of CRH Ventures said: “This groundbreaking project is a powerful example of what happens when innovators, industry leaders, and governments come together with a shared vision.”
Carbon Upcycling, which has a presence in the US and UK as well as Canada, is backed by a syndicate of investors, including the Business Development Bank of Canada, Climate Investment, Oxy Low-Carbon Ventures, and Clean Energy Ventures, as well as three of the world’s leading cement manufacturers: CRH, Cemex, and Titan Group.
Apoorv Sinha, CEO of Carbon Upcycling said: “Carbon 1 Mississaugua is a milestone in our journey to build world-leading domestic supply chains in North America," while Serge Schmidt, president of Ash Grove added: “This project signals a breakthrough in how we decarbonise one of the world’s most essential industries.”
Earlier this year Carbon Upcycling entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Titan Group, an international building and infrastructure materials company, to explore the commercial deployment of Carbon Upcycling’s technology for producing local, low-carbon building materials.
This collaboration builds upon an earlier investment in Carbon Upcycling by Titan. The MoA outlines plans for Carbon Upcycling to conduct technical feasibility studies at two of Titan’s cement plants where the technology will be used to produce SCMs.
Carbon capture and utilisation (CCUS) is an area of growing interest: earlier this year 17 collaborators, including SCI, launched the Flue2Chem final report. The culmination of more than three years of work; Flue2Chem is a UK multi-stakeholder project which, over three years, demonstrated that carbon captured from industrial emissions can be transformed into sustainable household products.
Further reading on carbon capture and utilisation
- Carbon capture: World’s largest cement decarbonisation project gets backing
- Flue2Chem points the way towards a low-carbon, circular economy
- Carbon capture and storage: Opportunities and challenges ahead
- Flue2Chem points the way towards a low-carbon, circular economy
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