Australian cleantech MCi Carbon (with corporate headquarters located in Canberra) opened its new industrial headquarters in the Steel River precinct in Mayfield West, Newcastle and held their inaugural Town Hall meeting last week. Company stakeholders, the board of directors and staff from both the Newcastle and Canberra contingencies came together for the first time in the new office.
MCi Carbon is an Australian technology platform that transforms CO2 into building materials and other valuable industrial products. The company was catapulted onto the global stage last year, when MCi was awarded #1 Global Cleantech at COP26 in Glasgow where Chief Operating Officer Sophia Hamblin Wang delivered the winning pitch.
“Vast momentum of interest and growth is now occurring in Newcastle and the Hunter region where these technologies need to be validated”, said MCi Chief Operating Officer Sophia Hamblin Wang. “MCi offers a unique opportunity to assist in the decarbonisation of industry, and since the news in Glasgow we have continued to attract more local talent.”
MCi captures emissions from hard-to-abate industries, like steel, cement, fertilisers and mining, unlocking the value of carbon by creating valuable products and materials for the circular carbon economy. The company has grown exponentially in recent years, creating more than 20 jobs in the region following the recent announcement of a $14.6m Federal government grant to build a world-first demonstration plant on Kooragang Island.
“It is advantageous to have an office centrally located between MCi’s pilot plant facility, the planned site for its demonstration plant and in close proximity to Newcastle airport”, said Martin Murphy, Chief Commercial Officer. “I look forward to welcoming MCi’s domestic and international customers and partners.”
Commissioned in 2016, the company’s pilot plant is located at the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER). The chemical process, called ‘mineral carbonation’, creates a range of low carbon embodied materials, including calcium carbonate, by carbonating minerals in slag and other by-products of the steelmaking process (mainly steelmaking slag), coal ash produced by thermal power plants, and other industrial waste materials containing magnesium or calcium (mine tailings: by-products from the collection of metals and ore).
‘Our technical team has grown from 8 staff in July 2021 to over 20 this month, as we expand to meet growing customer interest and to deliver our engineering scale-up program’’, says MCi’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr Mark Rayson. “Having a common space also means team members across departments now have a central hub to collaborate, which will be increasingly important as we scale up.”
As industries transition away from fossil-fuel intensive manufacturing to achieve emission reduction goals and those of the Paris Climate Agreement, a range of new technologies will be developed and commercialised through to 2050 and beyond.
“MCi offers a unique opportunity for communities in the region to assist in the decarbonisation of industry with novel technology and to form collaborations and partnerships with proactive customers to make a real impact”, says CEO Marcus Dawe.
MCi Carbon was recently featured in the Australian Financial Review, Smart Company and GQ, with CEO Marcus Dawe and COO Sophia Hamblin Wang named in the Top 100 Australian Green Power Players, published in The Australian.
MCi Carbon (MCi)
Email: comms@mineralcarbonation.com
Phone: +61 490 118 576