As part of an international competition sponsored by research organisation WERC: A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development, the Clarkson University Remedial Engineering (CURE) students devised their project to meet the criteria submitted by various companies and government organisations.

The CURE process involves using steel slag from the steel manufacturing industry to remove the carbon dioxide from the flue gas produced by coal-fired power plants.

“Their solution is highly creative,” said their team advisor, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Stefan Grimberg.

“Their process uses steel slag, which is a byproduct of the steel manufacturing process and has very little market value, to extract the carbon dioxide.

"The result is the production of calcium carbonate and hydrated slag, both of which can be sold and used by other industries. So the students have used a waste product to solve their problem and the resulting products have considerable market value.”