Lhoist, the leading lime producer in Germany and Europe, has signed a grant agreement with the European Commission's Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) to decarbonize Europe's largest lime plant in Wülfrath, North Rhine-Westphalia. The funding of around 228 million euros is dependent on the final investment decision, which must be made by the end of 2025. The project is expected to capture and safely store around 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year. This makes it one of the largest projects of its kind in Germany.
Lhoist and technology partner Air Liquide are planning to build a large-scale industrial CO2 capture plant that will use Cryocap technology developed by Air Liquide to capture, concentrate, purify and compress the CO2 from the lime kilns so that it can then be liquefied and transported by pipeline and rail to intermediate storage facilities and finally to geological storage sites. The project also includes the construction of three innovative lime kilns with oxyfuel technology, which significantly reduces the energy consumption for capturing the CO2.
Lime and limestone products are essential, as they are used as basic materials in countless industrial value chains and cannot be replaced by alternatives for the most part. At the same time, a large part of the CO2 emitted during lime production is unavoidable, as CO2 is released from the stone when the limestone is burned.
CINEA provides further information on the funding from the European Union's Innovation Fund in a recent press release: https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/innovation-fund-37-large-scale-clean-tech-projects-sign-grant-agreements-2023-12-15_en