Advanced Carbon Capture for steel industries integrated in CCUS Clusters

Project Information

C4U

Grant agreement ID: 884418

DOI

10.3030/884418

Project closed

EC signature date 25 March 2020

Start date 1 April 2020

End date 31 March 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 13 845 496,89

EU contribution

€ 12 499 083,27

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - C4U (Advanced Carbon Capture for steel industries integrated in CCUS Clusters)

Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

C4U is a holistic interdisciplinary project addressing all the essential elements required for the optimal integration of CO2 capture in the iron & steel industry as part of the CCUS chain. This spans demonstration of two highly efficient CO2 capture technologies at TRL7 designed for optimal integration into an iron & steel plant and detailed consideration of the safety, environmental, societal, policy and business aspects for successful incorporation into the North Sea Port (NSP) CCUS cluster.
C4U accords with the strong consensus to intensify R&D on promising breakthrough CO2 capture technologies leading to needed step-change impacts on reducing CO2 emissions in the iron & steel industry. C4U contributes to de-risking of new technologies, while recognising the needs of sequential and stepwise approaches for decreasing the cost of capturing CO2 from diverse streams in integrated steel mills, together with further needs of common shared infrastructure in a CCUS cluster. C4U helps to secure jobs in the iron & steel and ancillary industries in Europe, ultimately reducing the potential for carbon leakage. For assessment of public and political acceptance and societal readiness, C4U involves an exploration of framing CCUS in a Just Transition, for preserving employment and economic possibilities while addressing the energy transition. Through direct industrial stakeholder involvement, C4U enhances innovation capacity, market opportunities, competitiveness and growth at the European level.
C4U aims to achieve four overall objectives:
• Elevate two CO2 capture technologies, known as DISPLACE and CASOH, from TRL5 to TRL7 & design for optimal integration in the steel industry
• Analyse the economic, environmental and business impacts and opportunities of applying CCUS in a large-scale (TRL9) steel plant in the NSP industrial cluster
• Develop and test approaches with stakeholders and end-users to assess and advance societal readiness for CCUS in industrial clusters
• Ensure that the project’s results are exploited to the full extent and disseminated to relevant stakeholders to facilitate the large-scale rollout of CCUS

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The activities thus far for the DISPLACE pilot have involved engineering design, construction & commissioning phases as well as completion of three test campaigns. Highlight results of the test campaigns include >95% carbon capture rate and the first ever demonstration of the use of a decarbonised fuel for reheating purposes, along with post-combustion capture of oxy-combusted blast furnace gas to produce a CO2 stream with >97% purity.
Substantial progress in the design, construction & commissioning of the novel CASOH pilot process at TRL7 has been made, with the main reactors and auxiliaries installed at ArcelorMittal’s Gas Lab site. Reactor modelling to anticipate the CASOH pilot performance, and lower TRL research validating reactions with chosen materials, has progressed to plan and generated some new journal publications.
We have performed the detailed integration and performance assessment of amine based reference and C4U technologies for integration in a steel plant. Both C4U technologies confirmed their potential to reduce the CO2 footprint of steel production process in a cost competitive way - they can achieve a CO2 avoidance of up to 85% with a cost of CO2 avoided below 40 €/tCO2.
System modelling and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methods to integrate the C4U capture technologies in the steel plant as part of an industrial cluster were developed. These include a tool for evaluating the impact of identified CO2 stream impurities on the formation of solid CO2 in pipelines for realistic decompression scenarios, along with another for optimisation and techno-economic analysis of industrial CCUS clusters. The methodology for the environmental impact assessment of the DISPLACE and CASOH technologies integrated in steel plants was developed.
Completed work for incentivising CCUS in a societally acceptable way in industrial clusters and for developing a framework model on societal readiness for CCS has included a comparative socio-technical review and analysis of different green steel production methods, and a series of interactive stakeholder workshops covering the relevant sustainability transitions.
Finally, analysis the risks, challenges and business models related to CCUS development was undertaken which has enabled the selection and analysis of business models suitable for CCS deployment.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

C4U tackles the scale-up of CO2 capture technologies from TRL5 to TRL7, while trialling innovative functional materials under different operating conditions and developing novel reactor processes for steel mill off-gases. C4U is expected to significantly improve the performance of these technologies in accordance to key performance indicators. The reliability of C4U capture demonstrators via 4000 hrs of operational time in TRL7 pilots is being validated.
Process simulation and design for integration of C4U technology into steel plant while considering a range of different gas sources and determining fixed and operating costs is performed according to plant operating conditions and results from TRL7 pilots. Novel analysis of the CO2 capture / transport interface for the design and operation of CO2 compression and purification is developed. Feasibility studies are carried out to assess chemical synthesis within an industrial cluster using H2-rich by-product streams from C4U capture technology.
Industrial CCUS cluster operation and logistics is studied in C4U, involving evaluating performance metrics (economics, energy, safety, environment & public support). C4U assesses new technologies through analysis of scale-up using LCA with methods developed and applied to determine industrial cluster level environmental impact of capture technologies and integration opportunities with other industries. This enables the evaluation of C4U capture technology potential to contribute to cost reduction of decarbonising an industrial cluster under 2030 & 2050 emission reduction targets. This ensures the economic demonstration of an integrated CCUS chain while accelerating learning to facilitate fast CCUS deployment.
C4U elucidates a framework on how societal readiness for CCUS can be described and assessed. This helps to gain insight into the social and political dynamics for CCUS in the NSP cluster by developing an engaging narrative in consultation with end-users and stakeholders. Policy instruments for implementation of CCUS in steel plants in industrial clusters as well as governance arrangements are identified and evaluated.
Novel business models are formulated in consultation with stakeholders in a CCUS industrial cluster while assessing risks and barriers to deployment of infrastructure, cash-flow, risk management instruments, funding sources, capital financing and ownership structures.
A major expected impact is the contribution to the preservation of high quality employment and economic possibilities in the iron & steel industry while addressing the low carbon energy transition, thus leading to wealth creation, economic prosperity and enhanced quality of life. While job creation brings clear economic advantages, it also poses a challenge in terms of meeting the personnel skills. C4U will have an impact in assisting in this via the involved academic institutions’ educational programmes and research led teaching derived from the project outputs.

CASOH pilot at ArcelorMittal plant in Gijón, Spain.