JSW Steel trialling largest blast furnace CCUS project in Indian steel industry. BigMint reports

• Company's Vijayanagar site chosen for 300 TPD project
  
  
• Lower space requirements, capture costs key merits of new tech
  
  
• Breakthrough demo venture to fast-track R&D on CCUS in India
  
  

Morning Brief: Leading integrated steel producer, JSW Steel, has broken new ground by entering into a joint collaboration with mining major BHP and carbon management technology supplier Carbon Clean to demonstrate the largest carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) project in the Indian blast furnace (BF)-based steel sector. The 300 tonnes per day (TPD) project is the largest thus far which is at the demonstration stage.

"In India, all the major steel manufacturers are putting up blast furnaces (BFs) in a bid to augment capacity to meet the soaring domestic demand for steel. JSW has put up a new BF in its Vijayanagar facility. This new technology will be demonstrated at the company's Vijayanagar plant. We believe CCUS will be an integral aspect of decarbonisation initiatives in the steel industry. It is considered as a deep decarbonisation lever," Prabodha Acharya, Group Chief Sustainability Officer, JSW Steel told BigMint.

As per projections, the share of the BF-BOF route in India may rise to 55% by 2030-2031 from 44-45% currently.

In the Indian steel industry, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, has commissioned a 5 TPD CO2 capture plant from BF gases. It is based on an amine-based absorption technology. In the next phase of the project, the company plans to recycle the captured CO2 in its steelmaking operations.

JSPL has operationalised a plant that captures concentrated CO2 from commercial-scale coal gasification at Angul, Odisha. In addition, the same plant has a CO2 capture unit connected with a DRI unit. JSW has a 100 TPD CO2 capture unit connected to a gas DRI plant commissioned at Salav, Maharashtra. It converts captured CO2 to carbonates and supplies liquefied CO2 to the beverages industry.

New technology

Dwelling on the latest collaboration, sources in JSW Steel divulged that through the project BHP is seeking lower its scope 3 emissions, with JSW being the source of those emissions, while Carbon Clean is offering its patented technology. The CDRMax technology requires less space to install in an existing setup, which is one of its key benefits.

The CDRMax process captures CO2 from industrial flue gases or off-gases emitted from power plants, boilers, kilns and chemical facilities. The technology removes from 50% to 95% of the CO2 from natural gas, coal, and petroleum-fired processes to produce industrial grade CO2. The process is applicable from mid-scale (100s of metric tonnes per day) to large-scale (1,000s of metric tonnes per day) capacities for industrial carbon capture and utilisation applications.

Under the agreement, the parties will commence joint studies to explore the feasibility of Carbon Clean's CycloneCC modular technology to capture up to 100,000 t per year of CO2 emissions - the largest scale CycloneCC deployment to date in steelmaking. 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.

"JSW already has an operating CCUS plant at its Salav site but for gas-based DRI processes carbon capture is much simpler and more effective compared with the BF," Acharya official informed.

"Low CO2 concentration and pressure in BF flue gases is a matter of serious concern when it comes to effective implementation of CCUS. However, this modular cyclonic separator technology has twin advantages: a) less space requirement for installation compared with other CCUS technologies and b) lowering capture costs which are at present quite high. So, this demonstration is a lighthouse for the steel industry," he said.

CO2 utilisation & storage

According to the Ministry of Steel, India has a theoretical CO2 storage potential of approximately 629 gigatonnes. However, the realistic potential is 359 gigatonnes of CO2. There is no estimate of the true CO2 sequestration potential in India based on actual site characterisation. This is expected to create significant uncertainty for investments in CCS projects in the country.

The deployment of CCS measures will always increase the cost of steel unless there is some revenue from the stored CO2. Therefore, steel producers are looking at utilisation as a key enabler for investments in the sector.

At JSW Steel's 100 TPD operational Salav facility the captured CO2 is used for applications in the beverage industry. If this demonstration project is successful, JSW intends to liquefy the captured CO2 so that it can be sold locally.