The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan’s most prestigious research-and-development organisation, has signed a letter of intent of cooperation with the Taiwan Cement Corp. to commercialise carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

Tung Chien-hsiang, director of the ITRI Green Energy and Environmental Research Laboratories, said in a Tuesday Economic Daily News report that the institute began research aimed at developing CCS technology in 2009.

Its intention was to develop a system that slashed the cost of preventing large quantities of CO2 being emitted from the production process. According to Tung, ITRI researchers discovered that their CO2 capture system worked just as well when installed at a cement factory as it did at a power plant. The new technology quickly won the support of Taiwan Cement, the largest cement producer in the country, he added.

Since the beginning of the second half of the year, Tung revealed, a CO2 capture equipment has been operating on a trial basis at the company’s cement factory in Hualien, eastern Taiwan. Tung said the cooperative venture between the ITRI and Taiwan Cement highlighted the feasibility of fully integrating CCS technology into the cement industry in Taiwan.