KBR to design Carbon Clean CCS plant for Cemex

Carbon Clean

KBR has been awarded the FEED contract for a CCS project that Cemex plans to install at a cement plant in Germany. The captured CO2 will be combined with hydrogen to produce synthetic fuels.

The FEED contract is for a 100 t/d capture process called CycloneCC that has been developed by UK process developer Carbon Clean. The process combines an amine solvent for extracting CO2 with a rotating packed bed system that helps reduce the size of the plant needed for capture by replacing the gravity-flow of liquid in a conventional packed column with centrifugal force.

Carbon Clean says the modular system, which is provided prefabricated on a skid mount, can reduce the footprint of capture operation by five times and overall costs by 50%.

The plan is to install the 100 t/d system at Cemex’s Rüdersdorf cement plant in Germany. A second phase could increase CO2 capture to 400 t/d and a third phase to 2,000 t/d.

Cemex aims to be carbon neutral by 2050. Earlier this year it launched a Carbon Neutral Alliance with other industry players including Sasol that will use the Rüdersdorf plant as a test bed for technologies including waste heat recovery and renewable power generation to decarbonise cement production. Cemex wants its Rüdersdorf plant to be carbon neutral by 2030 and if successful will use the lessons learned to decarbonise its other production plants around the world.

Aniruddha Sharma, CEO of Carbon Clean, said: “Our fully modular and scalable carbon capture technology will play a significant role in helping cement companies achieve their decarbonisation ambitions. Scale is the biggest challenge facing any emerging clean technology business and this project is pivotal to ramp up industrial adoption.”