Pittsburgh-based US Steel Corporation and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announced they would be collaborating on a plan to test an advanced carbon capture technology.
The project, located at US Steel’s Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, Penn., will test an advanced membrane technology that will capture the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions. The project is part of the U.S. Department of Energy/NETL Point Source Carbon Capture Program, which aims to reduce CO2 emissions and meeting national goals to address climate change, officials said, by capturing CO2 emitted from blast furnaces.
“That makes point source carbon capture at iron and steel plants a priority. The testing of this promising NETL-developed membrane at the Edgar Thomson Plant is an important step to move this groundbreaking technology closer to commercial deployment,” said NETL’s David Hopkinson, technical portfolio lead for Point Source Carbon Capture.
The technology, a polymer membrane, offers a comparatively simple way to capture carbon, officials said, requiring few moving parts and no CO2 regeneration step. The result is a less expensive, simpler process, officials said. The membrane-based technology uses permeable materials to separate CO2 emissions from flue gas.
“Using our technology, we hope to generate a high-purity CO2 with a low percentage of nitrogen from flue gas so it can be safely and permanently stored in deep geologic formations or used as a feedstock to manufacture valuable fuels and chemicals and for other productive purposes,” Hopkinson said.
Already tested at the DOE’s National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in Wilsonville, Ala., the positive results have given way to expanded field tests at the Thomson plant.
“This is an opportunity to play a role in shaping the future of greenhouse gas reduction for the entire steel industry. Our collaboration with NETL marks a great step forward in U. S. Steel’s ambition to achieving net-zero by 2050,” said Scott D. Buckiso, senior vice president and chief manufacturing officer, North American Flat-Rolled Segment. “Meeting our net-zero goal will take innovation, and our Edgar Thomson plant in the Mon Valley will play a significant role in exploring this crucial technology.”