Efforts to decarbonise global manufacturing must spread throughout supply chains, from the final delivery of goods down to the sourcing and processing of raw materials. Industrial production of cement, steel, petrochemicals and chemicals — in other words, the stuff the modern world is made of — accounts for a quarter of all CO2 emissions and demand for raw materials is rising year on year.

Despite the scale of industry’s emissions problem, the IPCC says that net zero is “challenging but possible” for the sector: “Reducing industry emissions will entail coordinated action throughout value chains … as well as abatement technologies and transformational changes in production processes. Progressing towards net zero GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions from industry will be enabled by the adoption of new production processes using low- and zero-GHG electricity, hydrogen, fuels, and carbon management.”

This is an introduction to two of the abatement technologies in development that will provide industrial manufacturers with an electricity-powered alternative to replace combustion of fossil fuels; a major milestone towards emissions-free materials.

At Coolbrook, we combined technology from space science, turbomachinery, and chemical engineering to create the Roto Dynamic Heater (RDH) and the Roto Dynamic Reactor (RDR). By running on electricity alone, the high-efficiency RDH and RDR can generate the extreme temperatures required for the manufacturing of cement, steel, petrochemicals, and chemicals without the need to burn fossil fuels. Both technologies are being piloted and brought to market in collaboration with ABB.

While the application of these technologies to generate heat is novel, its underlying principles are well-established; in the most simplified terms, they are gas turbines running in reverse. Instead of using hot gas to rotate blades and generate power, electric motors rotate blades to accelerate gas and generate heat for various industrial processes. By accelerating the heated gas to supersonic velocity and then rapidly slowing it down in a diffuser to subsonic velocities, Coolbrook’s rotodynamic technology transforms kinetic energy to thermal energy and can generate temperatures of up to 1700 °C and thereby replace coal, gas and oil-fired burners that are currently in use.

The RDH technology is the only electric technology capable of providing a high enough temperature level required for cement production, which currently accounts for around a third of global industrial CO2 emissions, while the RDR technology is best suited for CO2-free steam cracking in petrochemical processes. Combined, it is estimated that RDR and RDH can reduce global industrial CO2 emissions by over 2 gigatonnes (Gt) a year and such technologies have the potential to propel these processes towards net zero.

Existing plants can be retrofitted with RDH or RDR without significant structural changes as the commercial units will have a footprint of just a few metres and can be used for a variety of applications, allowing for a gradual rather than wholesale switch to electric power. Coolbrook’s RDR and RDH technologies are now being piloted on a large scale and will be ready for commercialisation around 2024.