Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will take part in a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project that captures flue gas of a waste-to-energy plant for methanation.

The project also involves the city of Yokohama and Tokyo Gas Co. and MHI Group company MHI Environmental & Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. (MHIEC). In the project, CO2 will be separated and captured from the flue gas of a municipal waste-to-energy plant and transported to a local methanation demonstration facility operated by Tokyo Gas to be used as feedstock for methanation. This CCU demonstration experiment is the first of its kind in Japan, which will aim to practically introduce e-methane in addition to improving and expanding CCU technology, the company said.

In addition, the methanation facility used for this demonstration test operates with 100% renewable energy by utilizing electric power generated at waste-to-energy plants in Yokohama.

Going forward, the partners aim to utilize CO2 for purposes other than methanation facilities, as well as to explore measures for the visualization of the CO2 value chain, such as the amount of CO2 collected and the transport destination.