Economy & Market

Carbon Capture Challenges

Published

6 months ago

November 20, 2025

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Raj Bagri, Founder, Kapture, outlines a pragmatic path to net-zero through the 3Cs of decarbonisation, linking innovation, circularity and real-world impact.

In the global race to a net-zero future, it’s easy for the conversation to become dominated by grand, abstract concepts, trillion-dollar investments, global treaties, and the immense scale of renewable energy projects. While these are vital, I believe that true, impactful change – the kind that moves the needle on real-world emissions, today lies in tackling the less glamorous sources of pollution. It’s about getting our hands dirty and utilising the machinery and materials that underpin modern infrastructure.
At Kapture, our mission is to address this challenge head-on, focusing on two of the world’s most polluting sources: diesel and concrete. This focus has distilled our approach to decarbonisation down to a powerful framework: the 3Cs – Cut, Cement, Carbon.
The first ‘C’ is about the immediate, non-negotiable need to Cut emissions at the source.
There is a lot of talk about electrification, the reality is that the global economy still runs on diesel. From construction sites and mining operations to emergency backup power and remote grid connections, the diesel generator is an omnipresent, reliable source of power. But it is also a relentless polluter, emitting not just carbon dioxide but harmful NOx, SOx and particulate matter that severely degrades air quality and human health.
The challenge is that replacing these generators overnight is not feasible. The cost is massive, the demand for off-grid reliability is absolute, and in many places, the infrastructure for mass electrification simply does not exist yet.
This is where true innovation is critical. Our core technology at Kapture is a simple, cost-effective carbon capture, utilisation and storage solution designed to be retrofitted onto existing diesel engines. We focus on low-cost CCUS technology that can strip the CO2 out of the exhaust stream before it enters the atmosphere. The beauty of this approach lies in its simplicity and modularity—it integrates with current infrastructure, offering an immediate and affordable solution to businesses that cannot yet afford a full transition to electric or hydrogen.
By focusing on the exhaust stream of diesel, we are addressing the hardest-to-abate mobile and stationary power sources, delivering a direct and quantifiable Cut in atmospheric emissions, today.

Cement and circularity
The second ‘C’ is Cement, or more broadly, the concrete industry. Concrete is the second most consumed substance on Earth after water, and its primary binding agent, cement, is responsible for approximately 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions.
To achieve net-zero, we can’t just stop using concrete, we must transform its production into a net-positive process. This is where Kapture’s material comes into play, the true breakthrough in Kapture’s model is its circularity. The CO2 embedded material captured from the diesel exhaust is not sequestered underground, it is converted into a benign, inert byproduct. This carbon-sequestered material can be embedded directly into the concrete-making process replacing filler or potentially used as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM).
This achieves a win-win for the built environment:
1. The captured byproduct partially replaces energy-intensive cement clinker in the concrete mix, directly lowering the overall carbon footprint of the final material
2. The carbon, once a pollutant, is now permanently mineralised and trapped within the concrete matrix, enhancing the material’s performance
This is more than carbon neutral – this is the path to carbon-negative material production for the concrete sector.

Meeting emission goals
The final ‘C’ is Carbon, representing the closed-loop approach we must take to tackle climate change. It is the strategic connection between disparate industrial problems to create a single, powerful solution.
At Kapture, we recognised that the challenge is not just capturing carbon but finding an economically viable, scalable, and permanent sink for it. For immediate impact, embedding CO2 emissions into concrete offers a faster, more distributed, and revenue-generating pathway to decarbonisation.

To wrap up, this is the ultimate promise of the 3Cs:
• We Cut diesel emissions
• We use the byproduct material to transform one of the world’s largest polluters (Cement)
• We close the loop on Carbon, moving it from a liability to an asset, accelerating the global transition toward real-world, industry-transforming net-zero goals
The transition to a sustainable economy will not be won by idealism alone. It will be won by entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists who are willing to tackle the hard to abate sectors, connect the dots between seemingly unrelated industries and deliver solutions that are not just green, but cheaper and better than the status quo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Raj Bagri, Founder, Kapture, is a climate tech entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience, leading innovative solutions to reduce diesel emissions and combat climate change.

Related Topics:C’ is Cement concrete industry. Concrete Kapture Raj Bagri supplementary cementitious material

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Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

1 week ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

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April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.