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    Tata opens UK's first industrial-scale CCU plant

Summary

Built at a cost of £20mn ($25mn), the plant will capture 40,000 metric tons annually of CO2.

by: Joseph Murphy

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Europe, Natural Gas & LNG News, Topics, United Kingdom, News By Country

Tata opens UK's first industrial-scale CCU plant

India's Tata Chemicals announced on June 24 it had launched the UK's first industrial-scale carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) plant in Norwich.

Built at a cost of £20mn ($25mn), the plant will capture 40,000 metric tons annually of CO2 that are emitted from energy facilities that power Tata's production of sodium carbonate, salt and sodium bicarbonate. The CO2 will be purified to food and pharmaceutical grade, and used as a raw material in the production of sodium bicarbonate. 

The project was supported with a £4.2mn grant from the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS)'s energy innovation programme.

“The completion of the CCU demonstration plant enables us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing our supply of high purity carbon dioxide, a critical raw material, helping us to grow the export of our pharmaceutical grade products across the world," Tata Chemicals Europe's managing director Martin Ashcroft said. "With the support of our parent company, Tata Chemicals, and BEIS, we have been able to deliver this hugely innovative project, enabling our UK operations to take a major step in our carbon emissions reduction journey. Since 2000 we’ve reduced our carbon intensity by 50% and have a clear roadmap to reduce this by 80% by 2030."