Rio Tinto and Shougang start industrial carbon capture trial at Chinese blast furnace

Rio Tinto and Shougang have commissioned an industrial-scale carbon capture trial at Shougang's Jingtang steel base in China. The unit processes up to 3,000 cubic meters of blast furnace gas per hour and can capture around 10,000 tons of CO2 per year. It follows a smaller facility built in 2024 under a phased partnership that started with a 2022 memorandum of understanding. The project targets emissions from existing blast furnaces, which are hard to abate without replacing the entire steelmaking route. Using waste heat from the site could cut capture costs. The partners are also exploring ways to convert captured CO2 into syngas and recycle it back into steelmaking, reducing the need for new carbon inputs. This is a practical test of retrofitting carbon capture onto the current steel fleet rather than waiting for fully new production methods.