Greece/Italy: The Hercules international research project, which has 27 partners from 10 countries, has been launched officially at Milan Polytechnic, Italy. Hercules, an acronym for ‘Heroes in Southern Europe to decarbonise industry with CCUS’ will test new solutions in the CO₂ capture, transport, use and storage value chain and transform them into a scalable industrial process. Buzzi Unicem and Titan Group are two of the 27 partners, alongside waste-to-energy players and developers of advanced CO₂ capture equipment. This includes ‘calcium looping’ technology from Finnish Sumitomo SHI FW and cryogenic purification technology from TPI in Italy.

A part of the pure CO₂ flow will be destined for use in production processes. These include the production of new cementitious materials that could replace conventional concrete, as well as uses in the technical gas sector. Hercules will also investigate the transport of CO₂ from the industrial capture sites to geological storage sites at Ravenna (Eni) and Prinos (Energean). The gas will be handled by Air Liquide and Titan Cement.