CSIRO's CO2 Capture Tech Goes the Distance in the US

Australian-developed carbon capture solvent achieves near-total emissions removal at a commercial US gas power plant

14 Jan 2026

A carbon capture technology developed by Australia's national science agency has achieved CO2 removal rates of 99.5 per cent at a commercial natural gas power plant in the United States, in what researchers say marks a meaningful step toward making post-combustion capture commercially viable across heavy industry.

The result, detailed in a CSIRO assessment published in January 2026, is the product of more than 15 years of publicly funded research into chemical absorbents designed to strip CO2 from industrial exhaust gases.

The technology centres on cyclic amine compounds, selected after CSIRO screened hundreds of candidates for their ability to bind with CO2 quickly and release it with minimal energy. Early versions were tested at Australia's Loy Yang coal plant in Victoria, where operational problems drove successive improvements to the chemistry. Those formulations were later licensed to ION Clean Energy, a Boulder-based company that refined them into the ICE-31 solvent system now running at the Los Medanos Energy Center in California, the only carbon capture pilot at a commercial gas plant in North America.

The performance figures are notable. Gas exiting the system carries less CO2 than pre-industrial atmospheric levels, meaning the technology functions as a form of carbon removal rather than simple abatement. ION reports a steam demand increase of just 12 per cent, keeping the energy penalty within commercially viable bounds.

ION raised $45 million in Series A financing in 2024, led by Chevron New Energies, and is pursuing a second round in 2026 to support broader deployment.

For Australia, the outcome represents a return on more than $100 million invested by CSIRO over the past decade and a half. The technology is considered well suited to cement, lime, steel and aluminium production, sectors that present some of the country's hardest decarbonisation problems. The Australian Government is currently offering grants of up to $10 million through the second round of its Carbon Capture Technologies Program for pilot projects in those industries.

Whether the economics hold at full commercial scale, and how quickly operators in hard-to-abate sectors move to adopt the technology, remains to be seen.