CarboNation

CarboNation is a collaborative research and development project that brings industry and academics together to try to solve challenging industrialisation problems for carbon footprint reduction in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturing. The project aims to capture CO2 from industrial waste gas streams and utilise this to make useful starting materials to create circular and sustainable loops for everyday products. This project was awarded £950,000 in grant funding from the CCUS Innovation 2.0 programme, part of the Department for Energy and Security and Net Zero’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. The research started from June 2023 and is expected to be completed by March 2025. Procter & Gamble (P&G) leads CarboNation project – using its manufacturing expertise to design and test the carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) integration to its manufacturing processes. This should reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and minimise the carbon footprint of ingredients, whilst providing circularity in the manufacturing process. The School of Engineering at Newcastle University, a world leader in intensified modular process technology, will optimise the reactor used to capture CO2 from flue gas in the dry laundry spray drying process, converting it to sodium carbonate that can be used in the production of dry laundry products. The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) will support the project with expertise on materials processing and undertake an economic and lifecycle assessment of the end-to-end process.