In the third profile of our CarbonX 2.0 winners, industrial decarbonization researcher Jason Song explains how a burnt pot of noodles led him to rethink one of the world’s most stubborn carbon challenges: steelmaking.
A few years ago, Jason Song burned a pot of noodles. Frustrated, he threw them away, but not before calculating their hidden cost: 200g of CO₂ emissions, all for nothing.
Then he thought about the pot itself. Producing just one kilogram of steel generates roughly 2.3 kilograms of CO₂. Suddenly, the noodles no longer seemed like the biggest carbon concern in his kitchen.
The paradox of steel
Steel is everywhere, from kitchen appliances, bridges and cars to wind turbines powering the clean energy transition. As global demand continues to grow, so does the challenge of producing it sustainably.
Traditional blast furnaces, fuelled by carbon-rich coke, account for up to 8% of global CO₂ emissions. With around 1,400 blast furnaces still operating worldwide, Jason, a researcher at the Belgian cleantech institute VITO, is developing retrofit technologies that can help existing facilities cut their emissions significantly.
Rather than waiting decades for ageing infrastructure to be replaced, his work focuses on helping the blast furnaces in operation today reduce emissions now.
Creating a closed carbon loop
Conventional carbon capture and utilization technologies can be highly energy-intensive. Jason began to wonder whether carbon capture and conversion could happen in a single process, rather than across several separate steps.
He developed a process that captures emissions from a blast furnace and uses renewable electricity to convert them into a valuable reducing gas that can be fed back into the furnace. Carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere instead moves through a closed loop. Jason calls the process “CYCO2STEEL”.
“Not carbon as waste, but carbon reused. Not a smokestack, but a loop.”
From lab bench to blast furnace
The technology has already moved beyond the lab with VITO’s electrode operating for more than 2,000 hours. The next challenge is scaling it up.
With CarbonX 2.0’s partnership and financial support, the technology is being deployed in a 500-kilowatt pilot at the HBIS steelworks in Serbia. Designed to process 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually, the project is an important step towards demonstrating its potential at industrial scale.
Jason hopes that if he burns dinner again, the only carbon story will be the noodles, not the steel pot.
