A*STAR, EDB, JTC and ecosystem partners to explore testbed facility for accelerating industry adoption of emerging carbon capture and utilisation technologies

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and JTC will be working with ecosystem partners to study the development of a Carbon Capture and Utilisation Translational Testbed (CCUTT).

This initiative was announced today by Minister for Trade & Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong, during the launch of the Sustainable Jurong Island report. CCUTT was officiated at the Industrial Transformation Asia-Pacific (ITAP) event through the inking of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between A*STAR and 13 ecosystem partners.

The MoU formalises a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to conceptualise a national infrastructure to translate emerging CCU technologies. Through the MoU, ecosystem partners will be able to better meet their organisational needs by providing valuable inputs to influence the concepts and designs of the envisioned CCUTT, and encourage long-term relevance by solving industry-related challenges in decarbonisation, sustainability, and beyond.

The ecosystem partners at present are: Chevron Singapore Pte Ltd; Evonik (SEA) Pte Ltd; ExxonMobil; IHI Asia Pacific Pte Ltd; Keppel Infrastructure Holdings Pte Ltd; Nanyang Technological University; National University of Singapore; Pan-United Corporation Ltd; Pavilion Energy Pte Ltd; Singapore LNG Corporation Pte Ltd; Surbana Jurong Infrastructure Pte Ltd; YTL PowerSeraya Pte Limited; as well as SG MEM and START Centre, hosted by NTUitive.

CCUTT: Supporting a Sustainable Future

The CCUTT initiative is led by A*STAR’s Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences (ICES) and supported by EDB and JTC. Researchers from ICES will jointly explore carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) approaches with industry players and local research performers, including institutes of higher learning, in order to seed a CCU ecosystem that supports Singapore’s plan for a sustainable future.

By using pre-automated plug-and-play modular units which can be configured and operated on demand, the CCUTT initiative aims to address the industry’s needs for translating emerging CCU technologies by providing early data and insights under industrially-relevant conditions to scale up with speed, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. The CCUTT concept is also positioned to support and de-risk business decisions towards technology investments in Singapore.

Benefits to Industry

The plug-and-play, modular CCUTT is meant to be flexible and operated on demand within weeks for different CCU technologies. In comparison, companies currently intending to testbed a technology will need to build a dedicated testbedding facility, which can take between 12 to 18 months to complete. The CCUTT initiative aims to speed up the first scale-up of emerging CCU technologies compared to conventional approaches.

 The plug-and-play infrastructure of the CCUTT is meant to allow rapid evaluation and testbedding of emerging low-energy technologies which can capture carbon dioxide and convert them into useful products such as methanol, kerosene, or formic acid, under industrial-relevant conditions. These CCU technologies may include next generation carbon capture and conversion materials including membranes, solvent absorbents, solid adsorbents and catalysts.

The intended infrastructure of the CCUTT aims to support the end-to-end CCU technology testbedding requirements of the industry. The team is keen to partner like-minded interested players through various collaboration modes to identify first use cases, and to establish the initial pipeline of projects for the testbedding facility.