JSW partners with Carbon Clean and BHP in CCUS study

Under this agreement, the parties will commence joint studies to explore the feasibility of Carbon Clean’s CycloneCC modular technology to capture up to 100kt/yr of CO₂ emissions – the largest scale CycloneCC deployment to date in steelmaking.

The CycloneCC rotating packed bed (RPB) technology in combination with Carbon Clean’s proprietary APBS-CDRMax solvent aims to address challenges such as capital expenditure and ongoing operating costs, as well as the integration of new equipment into an existing operations site with space limitations, through reducing total installed cost and the unit footprint by up to 50%, and equipment that is ten times smaller in size than conventional carbon capture technologies.

It is anticipated that 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. If the project is successful, JSW Steel intends to liquefy captured CO₂ so that it can be sold locally.

BHP’s chief commercial officer, Rag Udd, said: “We are actively studying multiple pathways for steel decarbonization, including through use of hydrogen and renewable power, but we recognise that the blast furnace route will likely remain a pathway for the production of steel, particularly within India. Supporting the development of key abatement technologies such as CCUS is therefore critical. Partnerships and collaboration to accelerate the development and deployment of these technologies is essential, and we are pleased to be working with JSW Steel and Carbon Clean in tackling the challenge of decarbonizing steelmaking.”

Jayant Acharya, joint managing director and CEO, JSW Steel, added: “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. At JSW Steel, we aim to further reduce our steelmaking intensity to 1.95 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne 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 and this collaboration for a scale-up application would help pave the way forward.”

Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO, Carbon Clean, concluded: “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. 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 commercialised and rolled out at scale.”