Tata Chemicals Europe Opens Carbon Capture Facility At U.K. Plant

Tata Chemicals Europe will start producing and exporting baking soda by capturing carbon dioxide emissions from its power generation plant in the U.K.

The company announced the opening of its carbon capture and usage facility at its site in Cheshire, U.K. The plant has been set up with a total investment of £20 million, including £4.2 million grant from the U.K. government, it said in a media release.

“The CCU demonstration plant enables us to reduce our carbon emissions, whilst securing supplies of a critical raw material, helping to grow the export of our products across the world," Martin Ashcroft, managing director of Tata Chemicals Europe, said in the media release. "We hope that this project will demonstrate the viability of CCU and pave the way for further applications of the technology to support the decarbonisation of industrial activity."

The industrial-scale plant will capture 40,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions from the U.K. site's power generation unit. The captured CO2 will be repurposed for making sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, which will be exported to 60 countries under the brand name EcoKarb.

Carbon capture technology, even though expensive and unproven, are becoming increasingly important as polluting industries rush to decarbonise their operations.

An April report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change validated its usage, saying that CO2 removal will have to be part of the bouquet of emission mitigation solutions if global temperature rise is to be contained below two-degree Celsius.

Tata Chemicals Europe said that it has reduced carbon intensity of its manufacturing processes by 50% over 2000-levels and plans to further reduce it by 80% through 2035.

The newly opened CCU plant, designed with help from U.S.-based Pentair, will reduce Tata Chemicals' carbon emissions from power generation by over 10%, the release said.