Newcastle plant turns captured carbon into concrete and other everyday building materials

newy.com.au – Newcastle clean tech company MCi Carbon has used the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil on Saturday 15 November 2025 to announce that its “Myrtle” mineral carbonation demonstration plant in Newcastle is now open for industrial trials.

MCi Carbon says Myrtle represents a scale-up breakthrough for its CO2-to-materials technology, giving heavy industry customers a place to test how captured carbon dioxide can be locked into building products and other materials rather than stored underground, and potentially turning a decarbonisation cost into a revenue stream.

The company says Myrtle transforms captured CO2 and mineral feedstocks such as steel slag, mine tailings and ultramafic rocks into saleable materials using a process known as mineral carbonation. The reaction forms stable carbonates that permanently lock in CO2 and can replace high-emissions inputs in products including concrete, plasterboard, paints and paper.

Unlike conventional carbon capture and storage projects that rely on underground injection, MCi Carbon describes its approach as a “product first” model designed to create value and help projects progress without relying solely on a carbon price or offsets.

By the end of COP30, the company says Myrtle will be ready to run 24/7 campaigns with partners in steel, cement and other hard-to-abate sectors. At full capacity, the plant can mineralise about 2,500 tonnes of CO2 per year into around 10,000 tonnes of materials, generating field data for customer trials and helping develop industry standards.

MCi Carbon Co-founder and chief operating officer Sophia Hamblin Wang told an event at the Australia Pavilion that Myrtle is designed to give customers confidence about scaling up. “At Myrtle, customers can see the process, run a campaign, and use the results to decide on a scalable project,” she said.

Hamblin Wang travelled to the summit with a suitcase of concrete samples made using Myrtle’s carbon-embodied materials, showcasing results from recent Brazilian and Japanese customer trials that the company says highlight strong performance and growing market interest.

The Myrtle milestone builds on MCi Carbon’s research pilot plant in Newcastle, which has been operating since 2016 to screen different feedstocks, simulate flue gases and provide rapid techno-economic checks for potential projects.

According to the company, the market for low-embodied-carbon building materials is accelerating as governments adopt “Buy Clean” procurement policies and major infrastructure owners introduce sustainability requirements for concrete and cement. It says low-carbon construction materials have a total addressable market worth trillions of dollars and could lock away gigatonnes of CO2 each year at scale, potentially creating negative emissions products.

MCi Carbon’s commercial pathway includes a February 2025 investment of US$5 million from Mitsubishi UBE Cement Corporation (MUCC) and a collaboration agreement as part of a funding round exceeding US$20 million, which the company says valued it at more than US$200 million. MUCC joins existing Japanese partners ITOCHU Corporation, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

In Europe, MCi Carbon’s first commercial blueprint with RHI Magnesita in Austria is planned at about 50,000 tonnes of CO2 per year and is intended as a template for larger deployments around the world.

“This breakthrough shortens validation cycles and improves bankability for first-of-a-kind plants,” founder and chief executive Marcus Dawe said. “Myrtle demonstrates an export-ready Australian technology that delivers emissions reductions in infrastructure while enabling global partners to move faster.”

The company is now inviting partners across steel, cement and other emissions-intensive sectors to run industrial trials at Myrtle in Newcastle, using the data to inform larger commercial plants in Australia, Europe and other markets following COP30.