Lime production remains one of the UK’s most carbon intensive industrial activities, not because of fuel choice but because chemistry itself drives emissions. During limestone calcination, calcium carbonate decomposes into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide, releasing CO2 that cannot be eliminated through electrification or fuel switching alone.
Industry data consistently shows that process emissions account for the majority of lime’s carbon footprint, leaving carbon capture and storage as one of the few technically credible routes to deep decarbonization.
Against that backdrop, carbon capture developer Nuada and lime producer MLC have agreed to deploy a demonstration capture unit at the Singleton Birch site in North Lincolnshire. The pilot will be installed at MLC’s Melton Ross facility and will target CO2 released directly from the calcination process, rather than combustion exhaust, a distinction that significantly affects capture design, integration, and economics.
The demonstration is intended to generate operational and performance data under real industrial conditions, an area where carbon capture has often struggled to move beyond lab scale validation. For lime producers, proof points around energy consumption, system reliability, and integration with continuous high temperature processes are critical. Traditional capture systems have faced persistent barriers in this sector, particularly high energy penalties and large equipment footprints that are difficult to retrofit into existing plants.
Nuada positions its system as a response to those constraints, emphasizing lower energy demand and simpler integration relative to conventional solvent based approaches. The company’s technology is rooted in advanced materials science, which it links to recent Nobel Prize recognized research in chemistry, although the commercial relevance will ultimately depend on measured performance at industrial scale rather than academic pedigree. In hard to abate sectors, claims of efficiency gains must translate into sustained operation under variable loads, high dust environments, and tight uptime requirements.
For MLC, the strategic logic is clear. Singleton Birch operates one of the UK’s longest established lime production facilities, supplying high purity lime to construction, metals, water treatment, agriculture, and environmental markets. Demand for these products is expected to persist even under aggressive decarbonization scenarios, meaning that emissions reduction must occur within the process rather than through demand displacement. According to company statements, most of MLC’s emissions are inherent to calcination, reinforcing carbon capture as the primary lever for meaningful reductions.
The demonstration also reflects a broader shift in UK industrial decarbonization policy, where pilot and first of a kind projects are increasingly seen as prerequisites for accessing future infrastructure support, particularly for transport and storage of captured CO2. Without validated capture technologies at site level, large scale CCS networks risk being underutilized. Generating plant specific data is therefore as much about de risking future infrastructure investments as it is about individual company targets.
From a market perspective, lime and cement remain among the sectors with the highest untapped potential for carbon capture deployment, but also among the most sensitive to cost increases. Any capture solution must balance emissions reductions against product competitiveness, especially in markets exposed to imports. Demonstration projects like the one at Melton Ross will be closely watched for evidence that lower energy capture can narrow that cost gap rather than widen it.
MLC has publicly committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, a target that aligns with broader UK industrial decarbonization timelines but remains contingent on technology readiness and supporting infrastructure. As Fiona Woody, MLC’s Director of Sustainability and ESG, has noted, partnerships and innovation are central to that pathway. In practice, the success of this collaboration will hinge less on long term ambitions and more on whether the demonstration can show stable operation, predictable energy use, and scalability across a wider production portfolio.
