(Credit: TCE)Tata Chemicals Europe (TCE) opened the UK’s first industrial scale carbon capture and usage plant. Carbon dioxide captured from energy generation emissions is being purified to food and pharmaceutical grade and used as a raw material in the manufacture of sodium bicarbonate which will be known as Ecokarb. The plant captures 40,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year
The carbon capture plant, which was supported with a $5 million grant through the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) Energy Innovation Programme, marks a major step towards sustainable manufacturing, which will see TCE make net zero sodium bicarbonate and, the company says, one of the lowest carbon footprint sodium carbonate products in the world.
Already generating heat and electricity from one of the most efficient combined heat and power plants in the UK, TCE now produces half the amount of carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity generated compared to a typical gas fired power station.
Martin Ashcroft, managing director of Tata Chemicals Europe, said: “The completion of the carbon capture and utilization (CCU) demonstration plant enables us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing our supply of high purity carbon dioxide, a critical raw material, helping us to grow the export of our pharmaceutical grade products across the world.”
Ecokarb will be exported to over 60 countries around the world, generating tens of millions of export revenue every year. Much of the sodium bicarbonate exported will be used in haemodialysis to treat people living with kidney disease.
Another carbon capture project, “Northern Lights,” is being worked on to develop an open and flexible infrastructure to safely store CO2 from industries across Europe. The first phase of the project is due to be completed mid-2024 and will have the capacity to permanently store up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year.
Honeywell and EnLink Midstream are also teaming up to develop a carbon capture platform that targets industrial-scale carbon dioxide emitters along the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
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