Hanwha TotalEnergies announced on November 10th the start of demonstration operations for carbon capture pilot facility designed to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. The company has launched a year-long pilot program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its Naphtha Cracking Center (NCC), marking the first-of-its-kind demonstration in the petrochemical industry.

Pioneering Carbon Capture Technology

The demonstration specifically targets flue gas generated from the NCC, a core unit of the petrochemical process. Flue gas is a mixed gas produced during fuel combustion and discharged through stacks. This represents a significant departure from previous carbon capture research, which has primarily focused on coal-fired power generation and the cement industry, with only limited studies conducted on hydrogen production processes in the petrochemical industry.

Hanwha TotalEnergies plans to capture an average of 20 tons per day of carbon dioxide generated from the NCC over approximately 12 months under various concentrations and conditions. The captured carbon dioxide will be supplied to joint research and development institutions and used to produce prototype polyurethane adhesive materials.

National Project Development

The carbon capture pilot facility has been pursued since 2021 as a national project led by Hanwha TotalEnergies with six participating institutions, including the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER). The facility directly captures carbon dioxide from flue gas generated in petrochemical processes, representing a collaborative effort between industry and research institutions.

Hanwha TotalEnergies invested approximately 10 billion won in building the pilot facility. Construction was completed over about 18 months, from December 2023 to June 2025. After conducting trial runs and stabilization procedures, the company began full demonstration operations in November 2025.

Commercial Applications and Future Plans

Through this demonstration, Hanwha TotalEnergies aims to secure absorbent technology optimized for petrochemical processes and accumulate data needed to design large-scale commercial carbon capture plants. The company plans to use these results to move forward with a full-scale investment and the commercialization of the technology. A Hanwha TotalEnergies official emphasized the project's significance, stating that this demonstration run marks the first case of directly capturing carbon from the NCC, a core petrochemical process.

The official added that the company will accelerate efforts to secure competitiveness in eco-friendly technologies by linking the various carbon utilization technologies currently under study with the results of this demonstration.

Industry Impact and Innovation

The pilot facility represents a breakthrough in the application of carbon capture technology within the petrochemical sector. Unlike previous carbon capture initiatives that have concentrated on power generation and cement production, this project addresses emissions from naphtha cracking processes, which are fundamental to petrochemical manufacturing.

The 12-month demonstration period will test the facility's performance under various operational conditions and concentrations, providing crucial data for scaling up the technology. The integration of captured carbon dioxide into the production of polyurethane adhesive materials demonstrates the potential for carbon utilization in creating valuable products rather than simple storage or disposal.

The project's collaborative structure, involving multiple research institutions alongside Hanwha TotalEnergies, reflects the comprehensive approach needed to develop and validate new environmental technologies in industrial settings. The substantial 10 billion won investment and the extended development timeline from 2021 to 2025 underscore the initiative's technical complexity and strategic importance to the company's environmental objectives.

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