Nucor Corp. is partnering with the University of Kentucky (UK) Research Foundation to test a carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture system at Nucor Steel Gallatin. This is one of 12 research projects being funded by a Department of Energy grant to advance point-source carbon-capture and storage technologies that can capture CO₂ emissions generated from natural gas power plants and industrial facilities that produce commodities like steel. More than 50 industry and university experts are working together to tackle the difficult challenge of applying carbon-capture and sequestration techniques to an electric-arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking process. Once this pilot is complete, Nucor and UK will have a better understanding of the costs and effectiveness of carbon-capture technology for flue gas with low CO₂ content and the feasibility of replication of this technology at other EAF steel mills.

“The successful construction and testing of this heat-integrated carbon-capture process at Nucor Steel Gallatin shows great potential in lowering energy consumption at industrial sectors in Kentucky and across the nation,” said Kunlei Liu, principal investigator of the project and UK College of Engineering faculty member.