Unlocking the carbon economy: from extraction to utilisation How carbon capture and utilisation can unlock a circular carbon economy by shifting the focus from storage to utilisation
Vahide Nuran Mutlu, Bilal Guliyev, and Başak Tuncer SOCAR Türkiye Research & Development and Innovation Inc.
Introduction For more than a century, the global economy has relied on extracting carbon from beneath the Earth’s surface, refining it into fuels and chemicals, and releasing emissions into the atmosphere. This carbon-intensive model powered industrialisation but also accelerated climate change. Today, we face a turning point: instead of pulling carbon from the ground, we are capturing it from industrial sources or the air and rethinking carbon as a feedstock. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) offers pathways to mitigate emissions, yet adoption remains slow. The main reason is economic – unlike oil, which generated entire industries, captured carbon dioxide (CO₂) has limited market value. Storing it underground yields little financial return. The challenge is to build incentives and markets that transform captured carbon from a costly obligation into a profitable resource. Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) has clear strengths: it can reduce atmospheric CO₂, technologies are advancing, and corporate net- zero pledges create momentum. This article explores how CCU can unlock a circular carbon economy by shifting the focus from storage to utilisation. By repurposing CO₂ into fuels, chemicals, and materials, we can not only cut emissions but also create new value chains that integrate CCU seamlessly into circular economy models. Opportunities are expanding: demand for fuels and chemicals derived from captured carbon is rising, Remaining barriers that must be overcome include the need for new infrastructure for large- scale deployment and questions about long-
TECHNOLOGY TRL COST ENERGY
Post-combustion capture Pre-combustion capture
8-9 $40-120/tCO
CO
7-8 $40-80/tCO
Oxy-fuel combustion
7-8 $30-80/tCO
Direct air capture
6-7 $600-1200/tCO
Membrane technologies
$40-90/tCO (potential)
5-6
Chemical looping
5-6 $30-60/tCO
Figure 1 Carbon capture technologies, TRL, cost, and relative energy requirements
term economic viability. Smart, supportive policy design is as vital as technological innovation. Current state of CCU technologies CCUS technologies capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industrial sources or the atmosphere. While carbon capture and storage (CCS) focuses on permanent sequestration, CCU considers the captured CO₂ to be a resource, converting it into valuable chemicals that create both economic and environmental value. At the core of CCU are several capture methods (see Figure 1 ). Post-combustion capture, the most established, separates CO₂ from flue gases using chemical solvents such as amines and can be retrofitted to existing plants. Pre-combustion capture, typically applied in gasification, converts fuels into a hydrogen- CO₂ mixture, enabling easier CO₂ separation before combustion. Oxy-fuel combustion burns fuels in nearly pure oxygen, generating flue gas composed of CO₂ and water vapour, simplifying downstream separation. Beyond these industrial routes, direct air
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
43
Powered by FlippingBook