RHI Magnesita (headquartered in Vienna, Austria) and MCi Carbon (headquartered in Canberra, Australia; hereinafter “MCi”) have today signed a long-term strategic cooperation agreement, advancing a partnership to decarbonise components of RHI Magnesita’s operations. The global market leader of the refractories industry has made a multi-million-dollar investment into MCi’s carbon capture and utilisation technology.
RHI Magnesita is the world’s leading manufacturer of refractory materials, which are used in all high temperature industrial processes. As MCi’s first global commercial customer, RHI Magnesita intends to explore the deployment pathway of MCi’s decarbonisation solution to significantly reduce their Scope 1 emissions, supporting an industrial scale-up of the technology on Kooragang Island in Newcastle, NSW. This long-term commitment aligns with the priorities of Mission Innovation’s Net Zero Industries initiative, co-led by Austria and Australia.
“MCi Carbon and RHI Magnesita have formed a values-led collaboration to accelerate the scaling of MCi’s ‘Circular Carbon Platform’. After a year of successful pilot studies, RHI Magnesita will be MCi’s first commercial customer and a shareholder, helping advance the technology and decarbonise the global refractories industry. This is a positive step towards hard-to-abate emission reductions and a circular economy.”
Marcus Dawe, MCi Carbon co-founder and CEO
MCi Carbon captures emissions from global industries, like steel, cement, fertilisers, and mining, unlocking the value of carbon by creating products and materials for the circular carbon economy. The chemical process, called mineral carbonation, creates a range of materials, including calcium and magnesium carbonate by carbonating minerals in by-products of industrial processes. The company has grown exponentially in recent years, following the award of a $14.6m Australian Federal government grant to build a world-first demonstration plant at Orica’s Kooragang Island manufacturing site, using mineral carbonation to prevent emissions from entering into the atmosphere.
MCi and RHI Magnesita have in recent years been exploring the potential deployment of MCi’s technology for both the abatement of CO2 emissions and subsequent generation of magnesium carbonate with a lower emissions profile for use in select RHI Magnesita refractory production facilities. Activities between RHI Magnesita and MCi to date have included CO2 abatement studies, mineral carbonation feedstock assessments and techno-economic analysis across RHI Magnesita’s worldwide sites.
These key activities have been conducted at MCi’s pilot plant facility in Newcastle, Australia. Commissioned in 2016, the pilot plant is located at the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER).
“This partnership could become a breakthrough towards decarbonising the industry. It fits seamlessly with RHI Magnesita’s ambitious sustainability strategy. We still have a long way to go but our early-stage investment and the clear intention of a long-term collaboration make this day so memorable. Together with the like-minded team from MCi we will pave the way for a greener industry.”
Stefan Borgas, CEO RHI Magnesita
Results to date have been extremely encouraging, and both RHI Magnesita and MCi are confident in the value of further collaboration. Both companies see potential for broader deployment of MCi’s technology across RHI Magnesita’s refractory facilities globally as the partnership progresses.
“MCi is emerging from an assessment window where our technical team has been working with customers to apply our decarbonisation technology.”
Martin Murphy, MCi Carbon Chief Commercial Officer
Recently featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, and the Australian Financial Review, MCi CEO Marcus Dawe and COO Sophia Hamblin Wang were named in the Top 100 Australian Green Power Players, published in The Australian. MCi Carbon was awarded the NSW Clean Technology Award, presented at the 2022 Banksia
Foundation Sustainability Awards.
