Australia– Mineral Carbonation International (MCi), an Australian cleantech company, has received one of the largest individual awards from its inaugural Carbon Capture Use and Storage (CCUS) Fund.
The $14.6 million award for the project titled ‘Australian CCU Flagship: Demonstrating decarbonization for heavy industry’ will help MCi expedite the development of their technology that converts CO2 emissions into value advanced manufacturing and consumer products.
World-first demonstration plant
The grant money will be used to build a world-first mineral carbonation mobile demonstration unit in Newcastle, Australia. The ‘MCi Carbon Plant’ will be erected on Orica’s Kooragang Island site in two years and will have direct access to roughly 250 thousand tonnes of collected CO2 from Orica’s manufacturing processes. The scale of the demonstration plant will be chosen after the final pilot studies and technical designs are finished this year, but MCi Carbon Plants are intended to scale up to several million tonnes of CO2 conversion and removal in any suitable industrial site.
Transforming captured carbon dioxide emissions
MCi employs carbon engineering processes to convert captured carbon dioxide emissions from most industrial sources into solid materials known as ‘carbonates,’ which can be used to manufacture a variety of building and construction products such as building materials, chemicals, cements, concretes, and consumer goods. Carbon Capture and Utilization, or CCU, is the process of converting carbon emissions into value. The conversion of CO2 emissions and industrial wastes into useful products is a critical opportunity for the circular economy to enable emission reductions.
MCI’s grant award is one of six grants announced under the $50M Federal Government’s Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund.
