Carbon Capture & Storage
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Pilot
ArcelorMittal and partners Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), BHP, along with Mitsubishi Development Pty Ltd (Mitsubishi Development) have successfully started operating a pilot carbon capture unit on the blast furnace off-gas at ArcelorMittal Gent in Belgium.
The trial at Ghent will have two phases. The first phase involves separating and capturing the CO2 from the top gas from the blast furnace at a rate of around 300kg of CO2 a day – a technical challenge due to the differing levels of contaminants in the top gas. The second phase involves testing the separating and capturing of CO2 in the off-gases in the hot strip mill reheating furnace, which burns a mixture of industrial gases including coke gas, blast furnace gases and natural gas.
BHP and Mitsubishi Development, as key suppliers of high-quality steelmaking raw materials to ArcelorMittal’s European operations, are supporting trial funding.
The captured CO2 could then be linked up to the carbon hub at the port to be transported to storage sites in the North Sea.
A feasibility study is ongoing for the Ghent Carbon Hub project in partnership with the North Sea Port and Energy infrastructure group, Fluxys. The project has capacity to process 6mn tonnes of CO2 a year - equivalent to around 15% of Belgium's industrial CO2 emissions.
In late 2022, the project was awarded a EUR9.6mn grant from the EU Commission.