Carbon Capture And Utilisation: India to decarbonise cement with first-of-its-kind Carbon Capture testbeds, ET Infra

What is Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU)?
The testbeds
Testbed-1 (Ballabhgarh, Haryana): A pilot plant in partnership with JK Cement at the National Council for Cement and Building Materials captures CO₂ via oxygen-enhanced calcination to produce lightweight concrete blocks and olefins.
Advt
Testbed-2 (IIT Kanpur + JSW Cement): Demonstrates carbon-negative mineralization, locking CO₂ into solid minerals—a breakthrough in turning pollution into rock.
Testbed-3 (IIT Bombay + Dalmia Cement): Develops catalyst-driven CO₂ capture, installed at an operational cement plant to test indigenous clean-tech scalability
Testbed-4 (CSIR-IIP, IIT Tirupati, IISe + JSW Cement): Uses vacuum-based gas separation to recycle CO₂ from kiln gases into construction materials, closing the emissions loop.
Testbed-5 (IIT Madras & BITS Pilani, Goa + Ultratech Cement): Focuses on carbon-lowering innovations, merging academic research with industrial impact.
By ,
ETInfra
The high carbon footprint of the cement industry is a known fact. With India being the second largest producer of cement, accounting for about 8 per cent of the global production, the government has recognised the need to decarbonise the cement industry to align with Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets.In this effort, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has launched a groundbreaking initiative under which five Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) testbeds will be set up under the industry-academia collaboration.CCU is a critical technology for reducing emissions in hard-to-abate sectors like cement, steel, and power. It works by capturing CO₂ emitted during industrial processes and converting it into value-added products such as synthetic fuels, urea, or concrete aggregates. By transforming waste emissions into usable resources, CCU bridges the gap between climate action and economic viability, accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy The five testbeds reflect India's commitment to scalable, real-world solutions:Their establishment will be a significant step towards India's Climate Action for fostering NDCs targets and to achieve the goal of a carbon-neutral economy by 2070.

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