Amit Banka, Founder and CEO, WeNaturalists, discusses the success of CCUS depends on collaboration, carbon literacy and shared digital ecosystems rather than isolated technologies.

340 million tonnes annually. It is the lifeline of our infrastructure, the backbone of our urban aspirations, and the reason our highways connect villages to cities. But here lies an uncomfortable truth: every tonne of cement produced emits nearly one tonne of CO2. The industry accounts for 5.8 per cent of India’s total carbon emissions—a figure that challenges even the most committed sustainability advocates.

We stand at a peculiar crossroads. India’s infrastructure ambitions roar forward with plans for highways, hospitals, schools, and homes to serve 1.4 billion people. Simultaneously, the climate emergency demands action at unprecedented scales. The cement industry cannot simply reduce production. Yet it must transform. This is where Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) enters—not as a distant fantasy, but as urgent infrastructure for change.

It is encouraging that India has moved beyond treating CCUS as laboratory theory. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has launched five carbon capture and utilisation testbeds specifically within the cement sector, representing the first such integrated cluster initiative in India. These are not token projects. They bring together premier research institutions—IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras—with cement leaders including JSW Cement, Dalmia Cement, and UltraTech, structured through an innovative Public-Private Partnership model.

Each testbed attacks a different dimension. One transforms CO2 into lightweight construction blocks. Another employs mineralisation techniques, literally converting pollution into solid minerals. A third uses vacuum swing adsorption technology to separate captured CO2 from cement kiln gases. Together, they represent India’s first real attempt at institutionalising CCUS for hard-to-abate sectors.

The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) India, collaborating with TERI, has released India’s decarbonisation roadmap targeting net-zero CO2 emissions by 2070. Alongside government support and industry commitment, there now exists a structured pathway. Yet a critical question lingers: what will determine whether this remains a blueprint or becomes lived reality?

The answer: platforms that connect, literacy that educates, and ecosystems that accelerate.

Consider the challenge that keeps cement plant managers awake: CCUS economics do not work in isolation. A cement plant capturing CO2 must find somewhere to store it. Transport costs become prohibitive if storage sites are distant. Utilisation opportunities for captured CO2—whether in enhanced oil recovery, chemicals production, or building materials—scatter across different industries and geographies. The traditional model—where each facility independently solves its own emissions problem—fails spectacularly when costs explode and timelines extend endlessly.

Collaborative CCUS hubs concentrate captured carbon from multiple emitters, transport it through shared pipeline infrastructure, and coordinate utilisation and storage at scale. The Nordics have already validated this approach. Norway’s Northern Lights project receives CO2 from various industrial emitters, centralises management, and delivers offshore sequestration—reducing per-tonne costs substantially and making the business case credible.

In India, GCCA and DST explicitly emphasise hub identification and development potential, particularly recognising that certain regions possess optimal clustering opportunities. Yet hubs cannot materialise through goodwill alone. They require coordination across cement manufacturers, technology providers, logistics operators, carbon verification agencies, and government regulators—stakeholders with different incentives, geographies, and timelines. This is where collaborative digital platforms become essential infrastructure. When a cement manufacturer explores CCUS partnerships, when researchers seek industrial pilot sites, when policymakers track implementation progress across regions—these activities demand platforms that create real-time visibility and alignment.

Platforms like WeNaturalists recognise that climate action cannot thrive in information silos. The ability to facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborations, enable geographic discovery, manage complex projects transparently, and connect professionals horizontally creates conditions for faster partnership formation and deployment. Here is the essential insight: cement’s CCUS future depends less on any single breakthrough technology than on structures that connect the innovators, implementers, financiers, and regulators who will collectively bring CCUS to scale. Collaborative platforms are that connective infrastructure.

Spend time in any cement plant, and an interesting pattern emerges. Senior managers articulate climate commitments at macro levels. Plant engineers master their equipment intimately. Yet the connective tissue—the shared language about embodied carbon, capture methodologies, utilisation economics, and storage verification—often feels startlingly thin.

This is not knowledge scarcity. It is literacy scarcity. Carbon literacy means more than understanding that CO2 harms the climate. It means cement professionals grasping why their specific plant’s emissions profile matters, how different CCUS technologies trade off between energy consumption and capture rates, where utilisation opportunities align with their operational reality, and what governance frameworks ensure verified, permanent carbon sequestration.

Cement manufacturing contributes approximately 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. Addressing this requires professionals who understand CCUS deeply enough to make capital decisions, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and convince boards to invest substantial capital.

Current training pathways exist. The Decarbonising Cement Manufacture Course provides comprehensive six-week programmes covering capture technologies and energy efficiency. Specialist trainers offer bespoke carbon programmes for construction professionals. Yet in India’s cement sector, systematic carbon literacy infrastructure remains patchy. This creates a bottleneck: adoption lags not because the technology is unproven, but because insufficient professionals understand it well enough to champion deployment.

Consider the DST testbeds through a different lens: they are not merely technology incubators. They are the training grounds for India’s first generation of CCUS practitioners. These researchers, engineers, and technicians will migrate across the sector, carrying deep understanding of capture chemistry, operational protocols, verification procedures, and economic models. They become multipliers—transforming isolated expertise into distributed, sector-wide capability.

The cement industry must embed carbon literacy systematically. This means formal training programmes, industry forums for peer learning, and platforms connecting practitioners horizontally so they absorb lessons from others’ implementation journeys. When professionals understand not just their speciality but the broader CCUS ecosystem, they accelerate adoption across the entire value chain.

This is precisely why WeNaturalists’ emphasis on upskilling and awareness programs aligns so powerfully with cement’s decarbonisation challenge. Platforms that connect professionals, facilitate knowledge sharing, and highlight career pathways in climate solutions create the enabling environment for literacy to flourish.

Visualise this scenario: An IIT team develops a catalyst improving CO2 capture efficiency by 15 per cent. A cement manufacturer in Maharashtra plans a CCUS retrofit. A logistics company specialises in cryogenic transport. A carbon verification agency operates across multiple projects. A development bank seeks green cement opportunities. A cement associations’ innovation team seeks to track

emerging solutions.

Without coordinated digital infrastructure, this innovation journey takes years—if it occurs at all. Findings get published in journals. The cement company never learns about them. The logistics operator never discovers the opportunity. The capital provider never assembles the deal. With digital ecosystems, this timeline collapses. Innovation visibility becomes immediate. Partnerships form faster. Capital confidence increases. Implementation accelerates.

Digital ecosystems serve critical functions in CCUS scaling. They make R&D outputs visible to industry practitioners in real-time, not confined to academic journals or conference abstracts. When one cement plant solves an operational challenge with CCUS, others learn instantly rather than independently rediscovering the solution. They create transparency around carbon accounting and verification, building credibility in carbon credits and storage durability. They coordinate fragmented supply chains—capture, transport, utilisation, and storage—from isolated silos into functioning value chains.

The DST testbeds represent networked innovation clusters. Their impact multiplies exponentially if findings flow through digital platforms. When IIT Bombay’s catalyst-based system produces operational data, that intelligence should reach cement manufacturers, equipment suppliers, and policymakers in real-time, not wait for annual reports.

WeNaturalists infrastructure for project management, community building, network transparency, and cross-geographic data analysis exemplifies this approach. The platform enables research-to-deployment acceleration by making opportunities visible, connecting capabilities with challenges, and providing data infrastructure for monitoring progress.

There is an additional dimension often overlooked. Digital platforms democratise opportunity access. A researcher in a Tier-2 city discovers CCUS projects globally. A cement worker interested in green skills finds training opportunities. A small-scale equipment supplier gains visibility to larger ecosystem players. This is not charity; it is economic efficiency—leveraging India’s entire talent pool for decarbonisation

rather than concentrating opportunities among established incumbents.

India’s cement industry occupies a remarkable moment. CCUS technology pathways are mapped. Government support flows through DST testbeds and NITI Aayog coordination. Industry commitment is visible in the GCCA roadmap. What determines whether these align into scaled deployment? Three interlocking elements.

First: Collaborative platforms that align stakeholder incentives and reduce transaction costs for partnership formation.

Second: Carbon literacy programmes that upskill the workforce beyond their specialised roles toward integrated understanding of the entire decarbonisation ecosystem.

Third: Digital ecosystems that accelerate research-to-deployment cycles, create transparency, and democratise opportunity access.

None suffice independently. Technology without collaboration becomes orphaned innovation. Collaboration without literacy moves glacially.

Both without digital infrastructure remain invisible and fragmented.

India’s cement industry has always embodied stories of scale—scaled production, scaled infrastructure, scaled built environments. The next chapter must be scale coupled with wisdom: the wisdom to connect what requires connecting, educate what requires educating, and accelerate what requires accelerating.

Platforms like WeNaturalists understand this intuitively. They do not seek to replace traditional industry structures or government roles. Instead, they provide connective tissue allowing research, regulation, investment, implementation, and continuous learning to move in concert.

India’s decarbonisation pathway for cement depends less on any single innovation than on our collective ability to connect, learn, and accelerate together. The technology is ready. The moment is now. What remains is building—and building better—the platforms and people networks that transform ambition into action.

Amit Banka, Founder and CEO, WeNaturalists, is a business builder and ecosystem creator focused on driving nature-positive growth by combining media, digital platforms, sustainability, and strategic investments.

Cement’s deep decarbonisation cannot be achieved through efficiency and fuel switching alone, making CCUS essential to address unavoidable process emissions from calcination. ICR explores if with the right mix of policy support, shared infrastructure, and phased scale-up from pilots to clusters, CCUS can enable India’s cement industry to align growth with its net-zero ambitions.

Cement underpins modern development—from housing and transport to renewable energy infrastructure—but it is also one of the world’s most carbon-intensive materials, with global production of around 4 billion tonnes per year accounting for 7 to 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to the GCCA. What makes cement uniquely hard to abate is that 60 to 65 per cent of its emissions arise from limestone calcination, a chemical process that releases CO2 irrespective of the energy source used; the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) therefore classifies cement as a hard-to-abate sector, noting that even fully renewable-powered kilns would continue to emit significant process emissions. While the industry has achieved substantial reductions over the past two decades through energy efficiency, alternative fuels and clinker substitution using fly ash, slag, and calcined clays, studies including the IEA Net Zero Roadmap and GCCA decarbonisation pathways show these levers can deliver only 50 to 60 per cent emissions reduction before reaching technical and material limits, leaving Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) as the only scalable and durable option to address remaining calcination emissions—an intervention the IPCC estimates will deliver nearly two-thirds of cumulative cement-sector emission reductions globally by mid-century, making CCUS a central pillar of any credible net-zero cement pathway.

Cement’s carbon footprint is distinct from many other industries because it stems from two sources: energy emissions and process emissions. Energy emissions arise from burning fuels to heat kilns to around 1,450°C and account for roughly 35 to 40 per cent of total cement CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). These can be progressively reduced through efficiency improvements, alternative fuels such as biomass and RDF, and electrification supported by renewable power. Over the past two decades, such measures have delivered measurable gains, with global average thermal energy intensity in cement production falling by nearly 20 per cent since 2000, as reported by the IEA and GCCA.

The larger and more intractable challenge lies in process emissions, which make up approximately 60 per cent to 65 per cent of cement’s total CO2 output. These emissions are released during calcination, when limestone (CaCO3) is converted into lime (CaO), inherently emitting CO2 regardless of fuel choice or energy efficiency—a reality underscored by the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Even aggressive clinker substitution using fly ash, slag, or calcined clays is constrained by material availability and performance requirements, typically delivering 20 to 40 per cent emissions reduction at best, as outlined in the GCCA–TERI India Cement Roadmap and IEA Net Zero Scenario. This structural split explains why cement is classified as a hard-to-abate sector and why incremental improvements alone are insufficient; as energy emissions decline, process emissions will dominate, making Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) a critical intervention to intercept residual CO2 and keep the sector’s net-zero ambitions within reach.

Globally, CCUS in cement is moving from concept to early industrial reality, led by Europe and North America, with the IEA noting that cement accounts for nearly 40 per cent of planned CCUS projects in heavy industry, reflecting limited alternatives for deep decarbonisation; a flagship example is Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik CCS project in Norway, commissioned in 2025, designed to capture about 400,000 tonnes of CO2 annually—nearly half the plant’s emissions—with permanent offshore storage via the Northern Lights infrastructure (Reuters, Heidelberg Materials), alongside progress at projects in the UK, Belgium, and the US such as Padeswood, Lixhe (LEILAC), and Ste. Genevieve, all enabled by strong policy support, public funding, and shared transport-and-storage infrastructure.

These experiences show that CCUS scales fastest when policy support, infrastructure availability, and risk-sharing mechanisms align, with Europe bridging the viability gap through EU ETS allowances, Innovation Fund grants, and CO2 hubs despite capture costs remaining high at US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2 (IEA, GCCA); India, by contrast, is at an early readiness stage but gaining momentum through five cement-sector CCU testbeds launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under academia–industry public–private partnerships involving IITs and producers such as JSW Cement, Dalmia Cement, and JK Cement, targeting 1-2 tonnes of CO2 per day to validate performance under Indian conditions (ETInfra, DST), with the GCCA–TERI India Roadmap identifying the current phase as a foundation-building decade essential for achieving net-zero by 2070.

Amit Banka, Founder and CEO, WeNaturalists, says “Carbon literacy means more than understanding that CO2 harms the climate. It means cement professionals grasping why their specific plant’s emissions profile matters, how different CCUS technologies trade off between energy consumption and capture rates, where utilisation opportunities align with their operational reality, and what governance frameworks ensure verified, permanent carbon sequestration. Cement manufacturing contributes approximately 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. Addressing this requires professionals who understand CCUS deeply enough to make capital decisions, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and convince boards to invest substantial capital.”

Cement CCUS encompasses a range of technologies, from conventional post-combustion solvent-based systems to process-integrated solutions that directly target calcination, each with different energy requirements, retrofit complexity, and cost profiles. The most mature option remains amine-based post-combustion capture, already deployed at industrial scale and favoured for early cement projects because it can be retrofitted to existing flue-gas streams; however, capture costs typically range from US$ 60-120 per tonne of CO2, depending on CO2 concentration, plant layout, and energy integration.

Lovish Ahuja, Chief Sustainability Officer, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), says, “CCUS in Indian cement can be viewed through two complementary lenses. If technological innovation, enabling policies, and societal acceptance fail to translate ambition into action, CCUS risks becoming a significant and unavoidable compliance cost for hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, steel, and aluminium. However, if global commitments under the Paris Agreement and national targets—most notably India’s Net Zero 2070 pledge—are implemented at scale through sustained policy and industry action, CCUS shifts from a future liability to a strategic opportunity. In that scenario, it becomes a platform for technological leadership, long-term competitiveness, and systemic decarbonisation rather than merely a regulatory burden.”

“Accelerating CCUS adoption cannot hinge on a single policy lever; it demands a coordinated ecosystem approach. This includes mission-mode governance, alignment across ministries, and a mix of enabling instruments such as viability gap funding, concessional and ESG-linked finance, tax incentives, and support for R&D, infrastructure, and access to geological storage. Importantly, while cement is largely a regional commodity with limited exportability due to its low value-to-weight ratio, CCUS innovation itself can become a globally competitive export. By developing, piloting, and scaling cost-effective CCUS solutions domestically, India can not only decarbonise its own cement industry but also position itself as a supplier of affordable CCUS technologies and services to cement markets worldwide,” he adds.

Process-centric approaches seek to reduce the energy penalty associated with solvent regeneration by altering where and how CO2 is separated. Technologies such as LEILAC/Calix, which uses indirect calcination to produce a high-purity CO2 stream, are scaling toward a ~100,000 tCO2 per year demonstrator (LEILAC-2) following successful pilots, while calcium looping leverages limestone chemistry to achieve theoretical capture efficiencies above 90 per cent, albeit still at pilot and demonstration stages requiring careful integration. Other emerging routes—including oxy-fuel combustion, membrane separation, solid sorbents, and cryogenic or hybrid systems—offer varying trade-offs between purity, energy use, and retrofit complexity; taken together, recent studies suggest that no single technology fits all plants, making a multi-technology, site-specific approach the most realistic pathway for scaling CCUS across the cement sector.

Yash Agarwal, Co-Founder, Carbonetics Carbon Capture, says, “We are fully focused on CCUS, and for us, a running plant is a profitable plant. What we have done is created digital twins that allow operators to simulate and resolve specific problems in record time. In a conventional setup, when an issue arises, plants often have to shut down operations and bring in expert consultants. What we offer instead is on-the-fly consulting. As soon as a problem is detected, the system automatically provides a set of potential solutions that can be tested on a running plant. This approach ensures that plant shutdowns are avoided and production is not impacted.”

Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) remains one of the toughest economic hurdles in cement decarbonisation, with the IEA estimating capture costs of US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2, and full-system costs raising cement production by US$ 30-60 per tonne, potentially increasing prices by 20 to 40 per cent without policy support—an untenable burden for a low-margin, price-sensitive industry like India’s.

Global experience shows CCUS advances beyond pilots only when the viability gap is bridged through strong policy mechanisms such as EU ETS allowances, Innovation Fund grants, and carbon Contracts for Difference (CfDs), yet even in Europe few projects have reached final investment decision (GCCA); India’s lack of a dedicated CCUS financing framework leaves projects reliant on R&D grants and balance sheets, reinforcing the IEA Net Zero Roadmap conclusion that carbon markets, green public procurement, and viability gap funding are essential to spread costs across producers, policymakers, and end users and prevent CCUS from remaining confined to demonstrations well into the 2030s.

Carbon utilisation pathways are often the first entry point for CCUS in cement because they offer near-term revenue potential and lower infrastructure complexity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that current utilisation routes—such as concrete curing, mineralisation into aggregates, precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), and limited chemical conversion—can realistically absorb only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of captured CO2 at a typical cement plant. In India, utilisation is particularly attractive for early pilots as it avoids the immediate need for pipelines, injection wells, and long-term liability frameworks. Accordingly, Department of Science and Technology (DST)–supported cement CCU testbeds are already demonstrating mineralisation and CO2-cured concrete applications at 1–2 tonnes of CO2 per day, validating performance, durability, and operability under Indian conditions.

However, utilisation faces hard limits of scale and permanence. India’s cement sector emits over 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually (GCCA), far exceeding the absorptive capacity of domestic utilisation markets, while many pathways—especially fuels and chemicals—are energy-intensive and dependent on costly renewable power and green hydrogen. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cautions that most CCU routes do not guarantee permanent storage unless CO2 is mineralised or locked into long-lived materials, making geological storage indispensable for deep decarbonisation. India has credible storage potential in deep saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas fields, and basalt formations such as the Deccan Traps (NITI Aayog, IEA), and hub-based models—where multiple plants share transport and storage infrastructure—can reduce costs and improve bankability, as seen in Norway’s Northern Lights project. The pragmatic pathway for India is therefore a dual-track approach: utilise CO2 where it is economical and store it where permanence and scale are unavoidable, enabling early learning while building the backbone for net-zero cement.

Scaling CCUS in the cement sector hinges on policy certainty, shared infrastructure, and coordinated cluster development, rather than isolated plant-level action. The IEA notes that over 70 per cent of advanced industrial CCUS projects globally rely on strong government intervention—through carbon pricing, capital grants, tax credits, and long-term offtake guarantees—with Europe’s EU ETS, Innovation Fund, and carbon Contracts for Difference (CfDs) proving decisive in advancing projects like Brevik CCS. In contrast, India lacks a dedicated CCUS policy framework, rendering capture costs of USD 80–150 per tonne of CO2 economically prohibitive without state support (IEA, GCCA), a gap the GCCA–TERI India Cement Roadmap highlights can be bridged through carbon markets, viability gap funding, and green public procurement.

Milan R Trivedi, Vice President, Shree Digvijay Cement, says, “CCUS represents both an unavoidable near-term compliance cost and a long-term strategic opportunity for Indian cement producers. While current capture costs of US$ 100-150 per tonne of CO2 strain margins and necessitate upfront retrofit investments driven by emerging mandates and NDCs, effective policy support—particularly a robust, long-term carbon pricing mechanism with tradable credits under frameworks like India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS)—can de-risk capital deployment and convert CCUS into a competitive advantage. With such enablers in place, CCUS can unlock 10 per cent to 20 per cent green price premiums, strengthen ESG positioning, and allow Indian cement to compete in global low-carbon markets under regimes such as the EU CBAM, North America’s buy-clean policies, and Middle Eastern green procurement, transforming compliance into export-led leadership.”

Equally critical is cluster-based CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, which can reduce unit costs by 30 to 50 per cent compared to standalone projects (IEA, Clean Energy Ministerial); recognising this, the DST has launched five CCU testbeds under academia–industry public–private partnerships, while NITI Aayog works toward a national CCUS mission focused on hubs and regional planning. Global precedents—from Norway’s Northern Lights to the UK’s HyNet and East Coast clusters—demonstrate that CCUS scales fastest when governments plan infrastructure at a regional level, making cluster-led development, backed by early public investment, the decisive enabler for India to move CCUS from isolated pilots to a scalable industrial solution.

Paul Baruya, Director of Strategy and Sustainability, FutureCoal, says, “Cement is a foundational material with a fundamental climate challenge: process emissions that cannot be eliminated through clean energy alone. The IPCC is clear that in the absence of a near-term replacement of Portland cement chemistry, CCS is essential to address the majority of clinker-related emissions. With global cement production at around 4 gigatonnes (Gt) and still growing, cement decarbonisation is not a niche undertaking, it is a large-scale industrial transition.”

Moving CCUS in cement from pilots to practice requires a sequenced roadmap aligning technology maturity, infrastructure development, and policy support: the IEA estimates that achieving net zero will require CCUS to scale from less than 1 Mt of CO2 captured today to over 1.2 Gt annually by 2050, while the GCCA Net Zero Roadmap projects CCUS contributing 30 per cent to 40 per cent of total cement-sector emissions reductions by mid-century, alongside efficiency, alternative fuels, and clinker substitution.

MM Rathi, Joint President – Power Plants, Shree Cement, says, “The Indian cement sector is currently at a pilot to early demonstration stage of CCUS readiness. A few companies have initiated small-scale pilots focused on capturing CO2 from kiln flue gases and exploring utilisation routes such as mineralisation and concrete curing. CCUS has not yet reached commercial integration due to high capture costs (US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2), lack of transport and storage infrastructure, limited access to storage sites, and absence of long-term policy incentives. While Europe and North America have begun early commercial deployment, large-scale CCUS adoption in India is more realistically expected post-2035, subject to enabling infrastructure and policy frameworks.”

Early pilots—such as India’s DST-backed CCU testbeds and Europe’s first commercial-scale plants—serve as learning platforms to validate integration, costs, and operational reliability, but large-scale deployment will depend on cluster-based scale-up, as emphasised by the IPCC AR6, which highlights the need for early CO2 transport and storage planning to avoid long-term emissions lock-in. For India, the GCCA–TERI India Roadmap identifies CCUS as indispensable for achieving net-zero by 2070, following a pragmatic pathway: pilot today to build confidence, cluster in the 2030s to reduce costs, and institutionalise CCUS by mid-century so that low-carbon cement becomes the default, not a niche, in the country’s infrastructure growth.

Cement will remain indispensable to India’s development, but its long-term viability hinges on addressing its hardest emissions challenge—process CO2 from calcination—which efficiency gains, alternative fuels, and clinker substitution alone cannot eliminate; global evidence from the IPCC, IEA, and GCCA confirms that Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is the only scalable pathway capable of delivering the depth of reduction required for net zero. With early commercial projects emerging in Europe and structured pilots underway in India, CCUS has moved beyond theory into a decisive decade where learning, localisation, and integration will shape outcomes; however, success will depend less on technology availability and more on collective execution, including coordinated policy frameworks, shared transport and storage infrastructure, robust carbon markets, and carbon-literate capabilities.

For India, a deliberate transition from pilots to practice—anchored in cluster-based deployment, supported by public–private partnerships, and aligned with national development and climate goals—can transform CCUS from a high-cost intervention into a mainstream industrial solution, enabling the cement sector to keep building the nation while sharply reducing its climate footprint.

– Kanika Mathur

suggests CCUS is the indispensable final lever for cement decarbonisation in India, moving from pilot-stage today to a policy-driven necessity.

In this interview, MM Rathi, Joint President – Power Plants, Shree Cement, offers a candid view on India’s CCUS readiness, the economic and technical challenges of integration, and why policy support and cluster-based infrastructure will be decisive in taking CCUS from pilot stage to commercial reality.

CCUS is critical and ultimately indispensable for deep decarbonisation in cement. Around 60 per cent to 65 per cent of cement emissions arise from limestone calcination, an inherent chemical process that cannot be addressed through energy efficiency, renewables, or alternative fuels. Clinker substitution using fly ash, slag, and calcined clay can reduce emissions by 20 per cent to 40 per cent, while energy transition measures can abate 30 per cent to 40 per cent of fuel-related emissions. These are cost-effective, scalable, and form the foundation of decarbonisation efforts.

However, these levers alone cannot deliver reductions beyond 60 per cent. Once they reach technical and regional limits, CCUS becomes the only viable pathway to address residual

process emissions. In that sense, CCUS is not an alternative but the final, non-negotiable step toward net-zero cement.

The Indian cement sector is currently at a pilot to early demonstration stage of CCUS readiness. A few companies have initiated small-scale pilots focused on capturing CO2 from kiln flue gases and exploring utilisation routes such as mineralisation and concrete curing. CCUS has not yet reached commercial integration due to high capture costs (US$ 80–150 per tonne of CO2), lack of transport and storage infrastructure, limited access to storage sites, and absence of long-term policy incentives.

While Europe and North America have begun early commercial deployment, large-scale CCUS adoption in India is more realistically expected post-2035, subject to enabling infrastructure and policy frameworks.

Retrofitting CCUS into existing Indian cement plants presents multiple challenges. Many plants have compact layouts with limited space for capture units, compressors, and CO2 handling systems, requiring modular and carefully phased integration.

Kiln flue gases contain high CO2 concentrations along with dust and impurities, increasing risks of fouling and corrosion and necessitating robust gas pre-treatment. Amine-based capture systems also require significant thermal energy, and improper heat integration can affect clinker output, making waste heat recovery critical.

Additional challenges include higher power and water demand, pressure drops in the gas path, and maintaining kiln stability and product quality. Without careful design, CCUS can impact productivity and reliability.

At capture costs of US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2, CCUS can increase cement production costs by US$ 30-60 per tonne, potentially raising cement prices by 20 to 40 per cent. Initially, producers absorb the capital and operating costs, which can compress margins. Over time, without policy support, these costs are likely to be passed on to consumers, affecting affordability in a highly price-sensitive market like India. Policy mechanisms such as subsidies, tax credits, carbon markets, and green finance can significantly reduce this burden and enable cost-sharing across producers, policymakers, and end users.

Carbon utilisation can play a supportive and transitional role, particularly in early CCUS deployment. Applications such as concrete curing and mineralisation can reuse 5 to 10 per cent of captured CO2 while improving material performance. Fuels and chemicals offer niche opportunities but depend on access to low-cost renewable energy. However, utilisation pathways are limited in scale and often involve temporary carbon storage. With India’s cement sector emitting over 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually, utilisation alone cannot deliver deep decarbonisation.

Long-term geological storage offers permanent sequestration at scale. India has significant potential in deep saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields, which will be essential for achieving net-zero cement production.

Government policy support is central to making CCUS commercially viable in India. Without intervention, CCUS costs remain prohibitive and adoption will remain limited to pilots.

Carbon markets can provide recurring revenue streams, while capital subsidies, tax incentives, and concessional financing can reduce upfront risk. Regulatory mandates and green public procurement can further accelerate adoption by creating predictable demand for low-carbon cement. CCUS will not scale through market forces alone; policy design will determine its pace and extent of deployment.

In the near term, CCUS is most viable for large, modern integrated plants due to economies of scale, better layout flexibility, and access to waste heat recovery. Mid-sized plants may adopt CCUS selectively over time through modular systems and shared CO2 infrastructure, though retrofit costs can be 30 to 50 per cent higher. For older plants nearing the end of their operational life, CCUS retrofitting is generally not economical, and decarbonisation efforts are better focused on efficiency, fuels, and clinker substitution.

Over the next decade, CCUS is expected to shift from a competitive advantage to a regulatory necessity. In the short term, early adopters can access green finance, premium procurement opportunities, and sustainability leadership positioning. Beyond 2035, as emissions regulations tighten, CCUS will become essential for addressing process emissions. By 2050, it is likely to be a mandatory component of the cement sector’s net-zero pathway rather than a strategic choice.

In a two-part series, Consultant and Advisor Shreesh A Khadilkar, discusses how advanced additive formulations allow for customised, high-performance and niche cements.

Cement additives are chemicals (inorganic and organic) added in small amounts (0.01 per cent to 0.2 per cent by weight) during cement grinding. Their main job? Reduce agglomeration, prevent pack-set, and keep the mill running smoother. Thus, these additions primarily improve, mill thru-puts, achieve lower clinker factor in blended cements PPC/PSC/PCC. Additionally, these additives improve concrete performance of cements or even for specific special premium cements with special USPs like lower setting times or for reduced water permeability in the resultant cement mortars and concrete (water repellent /permeation resistant cements), corrosion resistance etc

The Cement additives are materials which could be further differentiated as:

When cement additives are used as grinding aids or quality improvers, in general the additives reduce the inter-particle forces; reduce coating over grinding media and mill internals. Due to creation of like charges on cement particles, there is decreased agglomeration, much improved flowability, higher generation of fines better dispersion of particles in separator feed and reduction of mill filling level (decrease of residence time). However, in VRM grinding; actions need to be taken to have stable bed formation on the table.

It has been reported in literature and also substantiated by a number of detailed evaluations of different cement additive formulations in market, that the cement additive formulations are a combination of different chemical compounds, composed of:

1. Accelerator/s for the hydration reaction of cements which are dependent on the acceleration effect desired in mortar compressive strengths at early or later ages, the choice of the materials is also dependent on clinker quality and blending components (flyash / slag) or a mix of both.

2. Water reducer / workability / wet-ability enhancer, which would show impact on the resultant cement mortars and concrete. Some of the compounds (retarders) like polysaccharide derivatives, gluconates etc., show an initial retarding action towards hydration which result in reducing the water requirements for the cements thus act as water reducers, or it could be some appropriate polymeric molecules which show improved wet-ability and reduce water demand. These are selected based on the mineral component and type of Cements (PPC/PSC /PCC).

3. Grinding aids: Compounds that work as Grinding Aid i.e. which would enhance Mill thru-put on one hand as well as would increase the early strengths due to the higher fines generation/ or activation of cement components. These compounds could be like alkanol-amines such as TIPA, DEIPA, TEA etc. or could be compounds like glycols and other poly-ols, depending on whether it is OPC or PPC or PSC or PCC manufacture.

1. Reduce Agglomeration ; Cement particles get electrostatically charged during grinding; stick together ; form “flocs” ; block mill efficiency ; waste energy. Grinding aid molecules adsorb onto particle surfaces ; neutralise charge ; prevent re-agglomeration.

2. Improve Powder Flowability; Adsorbed molecules create a lubricating layer; particles slide past each other easier ; better mill throughput ; less “dead zone” buildup.

;Also reduces caking on mill liners, diaphragms, and separator screens ; less downtime for cleaning.

3. Enhance Grinding Efficiency (Finer Product Faster) ; By preventing agglomeration, particles stay dispersed ; more surface area exposed to grinding media ? finer grind achieved with same energy input ; Or: same fineness achieved with less energy ; huge savings.

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4. Reduce Pack Set and Silo Caking, Grinding aids (GA) inhibit hydration of free lime (CaO) during storage ,  prevents premature hardening or “pack set” in silos. , especially critical in humid climates or with high free lime clinker.

It may be stated here that overdosing of GA , can cause: – Foaming in mill (especially with glycols) ? reduces grinding efficiency, retardation of cement setting (especially with amines/acids), odor issues (in indoor mills) – Corrosion of mill components (if acidic aids used improperly)

The best practice to optimise use of GA is , Start with 0.02 per cent to 0.05 per cent dosage , test fineness, flow, and set time , adjust up/down. Due to static charge of particles, the sample may stick to the sides of sampler pipe and so sampling need to be properly done.

Depending on type of Cements i.e. OPC, PPC, PSC, PCC, the grinding aids combinations need to be optimised, a typical Poly carboxylate ether also could be a part of the combo grinding aids

The cement additives can also be tailor made to create specific niche properties in Cements, OPC, PPC, PSC and PCC to create premium or special brands. The special niche properties of the cement being its additional USP of such cement products, and are useful for customers to build a durable concrete structure with increased service life.

Such properties could be:

High early strengths: Use of Accelerators. These are chemical compounds which enhance the degree of hydration of cement. These can include setting or hardening accelerators depending on whether their action occurs in the plastic or hardened state respectively. Thus, the setting accelerators reduce the setting time, whereas the hardening accelerators increase the early age strengths. The setting accelerators act during the initial minutes of the cement hydration, whereas the hardening accelerators act mainly during the initial days of hydration.

Chloride salts are the best in class. However, use of chloride salts as hardening accelerators are strongly discouraged for their action in promoting the corrosion of rebar, thus, chloride-free accelerators are preferred. The hardening accelerators could be combinations of compounds like nitrate, nitrite and thiocyanate salts of alkali or alkaline earth metals or thiosulphate, formate, and alkanol amines depending on the cement types.

However, especially in blended Cements (PPC/PSC/PCC the increased early strengths invariably decrease the 28 Day Strengths. These aspects lead to creating combo additives along with organic polymers to achieve improved early strengths as well as either same or marginally improved 28 Days strengths with reduced clinker factor in the blended cement, special OPC with reduced admixture requirements. With use of appropriate combination of inorganic and organic additives we could create an OPC with substantially reduced water demand or improved slump retentivity. Use of such an OPC would show exceptional concrete performance in high grade concretes as it would exhibit lower admixture requirements in High Grade Concretes.

PPC with OPC like Properties: With the above concept we could have a PPC, having higher percentage flyash, with a combo cement additive which would have with concrete performance similar to OPC in say M40/M50 concrete. Such a PPC would produce a high-strength PPC concrete (= 60 MPa @ 28d) + Improved Workability, Durability and Sustainability.

Another interesting aspect could also be of using Ultrafine fine flyash /ultrafine slags as additions in OPC/PPC/PSC for achieving lower clinker factor as well as to achieve improved later age strengths with or without a combo cement additive.

The initial adhesion property at sites of especially PPC/PSC/PCC based mortars can be improved through use of appropriate organic polymers addition during the manufacture of these cements. Such Cements would have a better adhesion property for plastering/brick bonding etc., as it has much lower rebound loss of their Mortars in such applications.

It is needless to mention here that with use of additives, we could also have cement with viscosity modifying cement additives, for self-compaction and self-leveling concrete performance.

Use of Phosphogypsum retards the setting time of cements, we can use additive different additive combos to overcome retardation and improve the 1 day strengths of the cements and concretes.

The concluding part of this article will appear in the next issue of ICR.

Shreesh Khadilkar, Consultant & Advisor, Former Director Quality & Product Development, ACC, a seasoned consultant and advisor, brings over 37 years of experience in cement manufacturing, having held leadership roles in R&D and product development at ACC Ltd. With deep expertise in innovative cement concepts, he is dedicated to sharing his knowledge and improving the performance of cement plants globally.