CaLby2030 will be the enabling tool to achieve commercial deployment from 2030 of Calcium Looping using Circulating Fluidised Bed technology, CFB-CaL. Three TRL6 pilot plants across Europe (Sweden, Germany and Spain) will be developed for testing under industrially relevant operating conditions. To maximise impact, these pilots will investigate the decarbonisation of hard to abate CO2 emission sources: flue gases from modern and future steel-making processes that rely mainly on electricity, emissions from modern cement plants that cannot escape from the use of limestone, and from Waste-to-Energy and Bio-CHP power plants that fill the gap in scalable dispatchable power and allow for negative emissions. These pilots will collectively generate a database of over 4000 hours of operation. This data will be interpreted using advanced modelling tools to enable the scale-up of the key CO2 capture reactors to fully commercial scale. Process techno-economic simulation, cluster optimisation and Life Cycle Analysis will be performed to maximise renewable energy inputs and materials circularities. All this information will form the basis for undertaking FEED studies for the demonstration plants in at least four EU locations. Innovative CFB-CaL solutions will be developed and tested to reach >99% CO2 capture rates, reaching for some process schemes costs as low as 30 €/tCO2 avoided and energy intensities with Specific Primary Energy Consumption per CO2 Avoided below 0.8 MJ/kgCO2 when O2 from electrolysers is readily available as an industrial commodity. Societal scientists and environmental economists will assess the social acceptability and preferences for “zero” or “negative emissions” CaL demonstration projects with novel methodologies that will elucidate and help to overcome current societal barriers for the implementation of CCUS. The consortium includes the world-leading CFB process technology developer, key end user industries and leading academics including CaL pioneers.

The EU has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Deployment of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) from different industrial sectors across Europe is a powerful fast track approach to abate CO2 emissions. CO2 transport and injection are the essential links between capture sites and storage reservoirs. The goal of ENCASE is to contribute to a safer, more cost-effective, and environmentally friendly CO2 transport and well injection. ENCASE aims to continuously improve 7 world-leading CCS-related research infrastructures (RIs) in the consortium with state-of-the-art scientific instruments, tools and methods to be the backbone for research and development of CCS technologies. Co-development of technologies will enhance the capability of RIs, increase RI personnel’s competence and enable these RIs to better address and close key knowledge gaps. ENCASE will safeguard and increase the competitiveness of these European RIs through strong collaboration with the CCS infrastructure operators, service companies, academia, and SMEs. The RIs will be available for the industry/SMEs for prototyping their new equipment/technology, e.g., pumping concepts, metering technologies, and simulator tools for monitoring, controlling and predicting the CO2 streams with impurities. The high-quality data produced in ENCASE will lift the knowledge level of industry and academia, which will contribute to the development of innovative companies and the education of future workforce for the CCS industry. Social innovation labs and co-creation initiatives will be developed by involving different stakeholders to address specific societal needs and better integrate the RIs in the local communities. Our success will improve the design and operation of CCS infrastructures and meet the EU climate goals. Thus, the enhanced research capacity build by ENCASE will benefit scientific community, industry, policy-makers, environment and society.

To achieve the 2050 climate goals, industries must transition to zero-emission and circular processes, crucial for the metallurgical industry facing challenges due to carbon dependence and difficult to abate emissions. Key to this transition is the integration of fluctuating renewable electricity sources, circular processes, and the production of versatile products like methanol. However, to overcome the challenges in e-methanol production, there is a need for technological breakthroughs for competitive renewable electricity and efficient CO2 utilisation. Energy-intensive sectors require low-cost, environmentally friendly CO2 capture systems. The integration of Power-to-Value systems presents a unique opportunity for a seamless transition to circular economies. EMPHATICAL targets residual CO/CO2 containing gases from highly electrified metallurgical industry, namely electrical and submerged arc furnace processes (EAF & SAF), through the energy efficient integration of innovative oxy-blown calcium-looping capture technology, purification, and conversion of CO2 to e-methanol with green H2 as a feedstock. Culminating in a first of a kind TRL7 demonstrator to establish economic viability and sustainability for achieving net zero in electrified metallurgical and methanol production. EMPHATICAL will demonstrate integrated concept at relevant scale for making decisions for the FOAK, taking overall conversion process from TRL5 to demonstration TRL7. The objective is to achieve a 25% reduction of the specific energy consumption and 25% decrease of the production costs. In this project, risks are mitigated from the start; each unit can be implemented as a stand-alone function within a modified state-of-the-art technology chain and thus provide immediate performance and energy efficiency improvements. The project evaluates EMPHATICAL concept integration in two industrial sites. The expected overall CO2 reduction for EMPHATICAL plants is projected to be 41 Mt/year by 2050.

Calcium looping (CaL) is one of the most promising technologies for CO2 capture in cement plants. The process comprises two basic steps: (1) “carbonation” of CaO to form CaCO3 in a reactor operating around 650°C; (2) oxyfuel calcination in a reactor operating at 920-950°C, which makes the CaO available again and generates a gas stream of nearly-pure CO2. The CLEANKER project aims at demonstrating at TRL7 the CaL concept in a configuration highly integrated with the cement production process, making use of entrained flow reactors. The highly integrated configuration allows achieving high energy efficiencies, with CO2 capture efficiency over 90%. The adoption of entrained flow gas-solid reactors is particularly suitable - and familiar - to the cement industry. The core activity of the project is the design, construction and operation of a CaL demonstration system comprising the entrained-flow carbonator (the CO2 absorber) and the entrained-flow oxyfuel calciner (the sorbent regenerator). This demonstration system will capture the CO2 from a portion of the flue gas of the cement plant in Vernasca (Italy) operated by Buzzi Unicem, using as CO2 sorbent the same raw meal used for clinker production. Other activities will include: (i) screening of different raw meals to assess their properties as CO2 sorbent, (ii) reactors and process modelling, (iii) scale-up study, (iv) economic analysis, (v) life cycle assessment, (vi) CO2 transport, storage and utilization study (vii) demonstration of the complete value chain, including mineral carbonation of waste ash with the CO2 captured at Vernasca; (viii) exploitation study for the demonstration of the technology at TRL>7 and for its first commercial exploitation based on CO2 transport and storage opportunities.

HERCCULES aims at defining a first-of-a-kind, integrated and replicable approach for the implementation of the whole CCUS chain to two strategic sectors of the circular economy - Cement and Energy-from-Waste (EfW) – in an area – Italy and Greece – where the industrial promise of CCUS is largely unexplored. Leveraging on the potential of two clusters of emitters in Northern Italy (cement + EfW) and Greece (cement), HERCCULES will pave the way towards the implementation of the first full-scale CCUS chain in Southern Europe. Technological, infrastructural, safety, societal, regulatory and financial issues will be addressed by a multidisciplinary approach to build an “HERCCULES paradigm” comprising nine basic chapters. 1) TRL7-8 demonstration of 2 flexible and retrofittable CO2 capture technologies, to be tested in 2 large-scale cement plants + 1 EfW plant with residual waste/biomass feed to approach nearly zero or negative emissions (>9000 h of tests). 2) Design of the optimal CO2 transport network for utilization and storage under different infrastructural evolution scenarios. 3) TRL8 Geological storage of captured CO2 in the two most advanced CO2 sites in Southern Europe (Prinos and Ravenna). 4) Demonstration in industrial environment of novel CO2 mineralization solutions and re-use technologies for the production of a breakthrough hydraulic binder enabling the industrial production of a carbon-sink concrete (>1000 h of tests). 5) Experimentally-supported, Techno-Economic Analyses with risk assessment to ensure the safety of the full CCUS chain. 6) Advancement of societal readiness through a participative approach. 7) Identification of business models and financial mechanisms tailored to CCUS. 8) TRL8-9 pre-FEED studies on the most promising HERCCULES implementation options. 9) Ad-hoc case studies to verify the replicability of the HERCCULES paradigm. Know-how, data and models will converge into a dedicated exploitation plan to seed CCUS across Europe.