Asia Cement to start CCUS in 2025 with TCRK technology

TCRK, a fast-growing IP-led CO2 capture and usage business, is collaborating with Asia Cement to bring TCRK’s carbon capture technology to a major South Korean cement plant, and support Asia Cement in achieving its 2025 decarbonisation commitments.

Starting in the 1Q23, this first commercial scale deployment of TCRK carbon capture and utilisation technology will initially target 30,000t CO2e per year, growing to 120,000t CO2e per year over the first 18 months. This second target will provide 20 per cent of the emission reductions Asia Cement requires to meet its decarbonisation commitments at the plant by 2025. TCRK and Asia Cement will look to continually expand the capture rates.

TCRK’s novel CCUS-based strategy for the decarbonisation of cement production will employ two processes to utilise the captured carbon from the current cement production processes to produce a lower-carbon cement product and to cultivate microalgae for biomass.  

TCRK’s innovative Arago Cement Process utilises captured CO2, cement kiln dust and by-pass particles to produce precipitated calcium carbonate, which TCRK uses to produce a carbon neutral cement product called Arago Cement.  This reduces emissions from the industrial processes used to produce the cement with the added benefit of significantly reducing the problem of disposal and landfilling of kiln dust. The process provides a long-term carbon store in the cement produced, and TCRK is currently working to demonstrate the life-cycle benefits of reducing the emissions of harmful cement by-products.

TCRK’s collaboration with Asia Cement will also use captured CO2 to grow microalgae, in a process called bio-fixation. This method will offer 10 per cent extra carbon storage capacity. The microalgae has a wide range of potential end-products including bioplastics and animal feed, and can also be used as a source of bio-cement production. This offers opportunities to displace emissions in other sectors by avoiding higher carbon production processes. 

Byung Joon Choi, production head of Asia Cement, said: “We look forward to the success of TCRK’s first commercial scale deployment of its CCUS technology with us and we will do our best to provide support, such as providing cement kiln dust and the space necessary for optimisation of the solution at our plant in Jaechon and expansion to other plants.”  

Tom Bruton, CEO of TCRK, said: “This is an exciting time for TCRK as we move out of R&D phase and into commercial deployment with our CCUS technology and we are delighted to be doing this with Asia Cement.”