The problem of carbon dioxide capture is more commercial than technical. Although extracting CO2 from industrial emissions is possible, the payment for this process is difficult because the collected gas requires compression, transportation, and disposal, and none of these stages produce a commodity that anyone would want to buy. For an industrial enterprise, this represents pure costs.
An alternative solution is converting carbon dioxide into a final product. The mineralization process achieves this: the gas reacts with available and inexpensive elements, forming solid carbonates—a family of materials that includes limestone, which has industrial applications and can be sold.
UrjanovaC, founded in January 2023 and developed at IIT Bombay, was established by Vikram Vishal and Arnab Datta, who are professors at the institute. The company aims to make carbon management economically viable, not just technically feasible.
The company focuses on industries that have no simpler alternatives. For example, steel mills or cement kilns emit carbon dioxide as a byproduct of the chemistry itself, not just from burning fuel, so they are called 'hard-to-abate': switching to renewable energy sources does not eliminate these emissions.
The chemical capture process is aqueous, meaning it is water-based. In March 2024, the company announced that its system can extract carbon dioxide from both industrial flue gases and ambient air, using industrial wastewater or even seawater instead of fresh water.
It is this last aspect that ensures the company's economic viability. The process relies on elements widely found on Earth and non-potable water, both of which are cheap, and the catalyst is reusable rather than consumed. The collected gas is then converted into high-value minerals.
The system is designed to modernize existing facilities. UrjanovaC describes modular units that can be installed at an already existing facility instead of requiring the entire plant to be designed around them. This is critical for the hard-to-abate industries the company targets: cement, steel, and other processes where emissions arise from chemical reactions, not fuel combustion.
The company claims full ownership of its intellectual property and holds patents for the capture and mineralization technology. A limitation is scale. Mineralization requires large volumes of raw materials to bind significant amounts of carbon, so access to cheap raw materials and wastewater is as important as the chemistry itself.
In April 2025, the company was recognized as a winner of the Avaana Capital, Startup India, and NITI Aayog AIM Grand Challenge for Climate Tech Innovation, held at Startup Mahakumbh. It was one of three selected from 557 applications submitted across 22 states, and it participated in a panel of industry, political, and sustainability representatives.
The company's funding is modest compared to the scale of the problem. The company reports raising about $1 million and notes a growth of active projects by over 60% between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, although it does not specify the exact number of projects.
In June 2026, the company participated in the Bharat Innovates event in Nice, France, among Indian companies. There, it presented itself as ready for pilot projects and procurement partnerships, citing its experience in carbon capture as a basis for engaging with regulators handling decarbonization mandates.
Commercial implementation has not yet been announced. No public sources contain information about an industrial client, contract, or operational facility, and the transition from working technology to a willing-to-pay enterprise remains the next step.
Water tanks installed on rooftops of houses are widely used for washing and hygiene purposes in Indian homes. Due to their location on the roof, they quickly become contaminated during rainfall. If regular cleaning is not performed, green or black moss begins to form on the walls and bottom of the tank.
In addition to aesthetic contamination, this leads to the spoilage of water used for washing dishes, clothes, and bathing. However, the biggest difficulty is that removing moss accumulated at the bottom of the tank is quite challenging, which often causes people to postpone this procedure.
If moss has also formed in your tank, this article presents simple home methods that can help you get rid of it.
To remove moss accumulated inside the tank, it is necessary to completely empty it first. Then, thoroughly scrub the walls and bottom of the tank with a long, stiff brush. It is also important to clean the corners and the area around the lid, as moss forms there too.
Furthermore, on areas with heavy deposits, you can spray baking soda, add a little water, and form a paste. Scrub this area with a brush after a few minutes. This will help loosen the dirt and moss, after which they can be easily removed with a brush.
In addition to baking soda, white vinegar, which is available in the kitchen, can be used to combat moss. Mix vinegar with water and apply it to the inner surface of the tank. After some time, scrub with a brush and rinse thoroughly with clean water. It is strictly forbidden to mix vinegar with bleach.
Saltwater can also be used to remove moss, as salt helps loosen the layer of dirt and moss, simplifying the cleaning process with a brush.
After the moss has been removed, it is crucial to rinse the tank multiple times with clean water. Rinse until all residues of baking soda, vinegar, salt, or dirt have disappeared.
To prevent the re-formation of moss, always keep the tank lid tightly closed. Especially during rainy and stormy days, the roof lid can break or blow away. Therefore, during such periods, the tank lid on the roof must be checked weekly. It is also advisable to try to protect the tank from direct sunlight, as the sun promotes moss growth.
It is important to remember: after cleaning the tank for drinking water, there should be no traces of household cleaning agents or chemicals remaining. If there is too much moss or an unpleasant odor appears, it is better to call a professional tank cleaning service.
Mobarakeh Steel has moved away from the traditional view of waste, shifting towards material cycle management. This approach involves returning scrap metal to the production process, transforming slag into infrastructure elements, and converting by-products from operational costs into sources of economic and environmental advantage.
According to reports, even before Isfahan woke up, the roads were already busy. Transport moves along the city's fourth ring road, whose asphalt contains fillers derived from a source few would associate with road construction—it is metallurgical production slag. Material that once signified the end of an industrial cycle has now become part of urban infrastructure.
This simple picture raises an important question: if material leaving a furnace can re-enter the economic life, can it still be called 'waste'? This question is relevant not only to Isfahan but to the entire global steel industry. This sector requires huge volumes of raw materials and energy for production while simultaneously striving to reduce its environmental impact.
Under such conditions, value is determined not only by the steel leaving the production line but also by the materials at intermediate and final stages of the process. Here, the circular economy transforms from a mere ecological concept into a new operational logic of production: material should not be considered finished as long as it retains the potential to create value. Mobarakeh Steel has implemented this logic directly within its plant.
In the steel complex, the term 'waste' is too general to describe complex materials. Mobarakeh Steel has identified about 300 types of operational and non-operational waste streams, each possessing unique characteristics, composition, processing methods, and areas of application.
This diversity shows that the circular economy cannot begin at the scrap sales stage; first and foremost, it is necessary to know exactly what materials exist. Therefore, the priority task has been the creation of a comprehensive Waste Atlas for Mobarakeh Steel—a basic reference guide for identifying, classifying, and documenting technical knowledge related to these materials.
The significance of this atlas lies not only in data recording. In an industry where a significant portion of knowledge is formed by employee experience, documentation prevents the loss of organizational memory and ensures structured decision-making for future generations. However, the most important result is the change in perspective on the material itself. Once a waste stream is identified, its properties are defined, a processing path is outlined, and potential applications are revealed, it ceases to be an unknown residual product. It becomes secondary raw material—material for which a future can be determined.
However, knowledge without data is insufficient. In a large industrial complex with such material diversity, waste streams must be fully visible and traceable—from scrap intake to processing, consumption, sales, and inventory management.
To achieve this goal, Mobarakeh Steel is developing a Waste Processing Dashboard, an integrated system designed to unify these material flows into a single standardized platform. The project has reached approximately 60% completion and is scheduled for launch this year.
At first glance, this system is a management tool; however, internally, it creates a bridge between material data and strategic decisions. When data is centralized, it becomes clear which materials are consumed the most, which processes require optimization, what product has recyclable value, and what output can find new buyers in the industrial supply chain. In the next phase, this data infrastructure can pave the way for predictive analytics and the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence for more accurate waste identification and sorting. Thus, the circular economy is built not just by returning materials, but by the ability to track and see the material throughout its entire lifecycle.
Scrap metal is perhaps the best-known form of material recovery in the steel industry. Steel used in vehicles, buildings, or industrial equipment does not necessarily leave the economic cycle upon the product's end of life. It can be collected, sorted, melted, and turned into raw material for secondary production.
In this cycle, the past becomes input for the future. For Mobarakeh Steel, returning scrap to the production process is part of continuous efforts to reduce waste and use resources more efficiently. Nevertheless, the importance of this practice extends beyond the plant. The more the industry can recover materials from the life cycles of previous products, the less it depends on mining and transporting virgin natural resources—this has both economic and environmental significance in a world facing growing pressure on energy and natural resources. From this perspective, scrap is not iron whose life cycle has ended; it is iron that has simply moved from one industrial life to another.
While scrap represents the return of material to the plant, slag demonstrates the return of material outward, into society. After being formed during the steel smelting process, slag can be used in civil construction after appropriate treatment.
One of the clearest examples is Isfahan, where treated slag from Mobarakeh Steel was incorporated into the asphalt production for the city's fourth ring road. In another initiative, this material was also incorporated into railway infrastructure, where the use of Mobarakeh Steel slag in the development of railway stations specifically and physically connected the steel and transport industries for the first time.
Material that was once at the very last stage of the steel smelting process can now support the infrastructure that facilitates the large-scale movement of goods, materials, and people. From city ring road asphalt to railway tracks, a unified logic emerges: what is considered the end of a process in one industry can become the beginning of a process in another. Here, slag ceases to be an unwanted product; it transforms into a material performing a new function in another part of the economy. This transition defines the boundary between basic waste management and true material cycle management.
When treated slag leaves the plant and is used in civil construction projects, something more significant than just consuming a by-product occurs: two previously separate economic supply cycles become interconnected. Steel production provides an output; road construction requires materials; technology, standards, and processing eliminate the gap between them.
When technical specifications are met, these connections reduce dependence on primary raw materials and lessen the burden on natural ecosystems. This same logic can link various industries on a broader scale—from road and civil construction to cement production and other sectors capable of utilizing steel by-products. Here, the circular economy stops being a local cycle within the factory; it becomes an interconnected network uniting different industries.
No cycle can exist without sustainable economic value. Mobarakeh Steel's performance indicators for 2025 demonstrate that this circular approach goes beyond environmental preservation and affects financial metrics. The implementation of 11 improvement projects over the year generated a total positive financial effect of 13.5 trillion IRR (13.5 Hemmat). This set of measures included revenue generation and cost reduction, with the sale of by-products and the commercialization of waste serving as key drivers of value creation.
Here, the circular economy evolves from a purely ecological obligation into a strategic economic decision. Material that previously had to be managed as an expense item can now be sold. By-products can find viable commercial markets. Waste reduction lowers operating costs, and process optimization allows for greater value extraction from existing resources without the need for capacity expansion. This shift represents one of the most important transformations in the steel industry: industrial growth no longer requires increased resource consumption—it means using what we already have in a smarter way.
Will the future of steel be determined solely by iron ore? Global competitiveness in the steel industry in the coming years will depend not only on production capacity. Access to scrap, the ability to recycle by-products, resource efficiency, data management, cost reduction, and the creation of markets for secondary materials will become the main pillar of industrial strength.
In such an environment, the maximum competitive advantage belongs to plants capable of extending the lifespan of materials—materials that are mined once, used once, and returned to the cycle again. Mobarakeh Steel is actively testing this circular logic on an industrial scale while promoting waste identification, intelligent waste tracking, scrap recycling, and slag processing. This path is far from complete—in fact, it should have no end.
We can return to that initial scene: a morning in Isfahan. The fourth ring road is bustling with traffic. Under the tires is material that once emerged from the heat of the industrial furnace.
However, the journey of this material did not end there. This time, instead of returning to the furnace, it returned to the city. Meanwhile, on the other side of the cycle, metallic scrap returns from the city back to the furnace. Two separate paths, governed by a single continuous logic: the material remains in motion. Its form changes, its application shifts, but its value does not end.
Perhaps this is the true future of the steel industry: not a factory that consumes resources and discards them, but an enterprise that finds a secondary purpose for every material wherever possible. In such a world, 'waste' is no longer a material name—it is simply the name of the moment when we have not yet discovered the next destination for that material.
If you like guavas but do not have a large garden at home, there is no need to worry. You can very easily grow a guava bush in a pot on a balcony, roof, or in a small yard during the rainy season. Once the plant grows, you will no longer have to buy guavas from the store. The advantage is that this does not require much space. With a suitable pot, good soil, sufficient sunlight, and some care, the plant can develop well.
However, it is important to understand that guava plants grown from seeds may only start bearing fruit after several years. If you want to get fruit faster, it is better to use a grafted plant. With correct planting and care, a grafted plant can bear fruit in about 1-2 years.
Since guava can grow significantly over time, you must not make a mistake and plant it in a small pot. For this, you can use a large growing bag of about 24x24 inches or a deep and wide pot. The pot must provide enough space for the plant's roots to grow.
You should also choose a pot with a properly made drainage hole at the bottom. This will prevent waterlogging in the plant, allowing it to drain freely. If water remains in the soil for a long time, the plant's roots can rot.
If you decide to prepare the plant from seeds, you first need to extract the seeds from a ripe and high-quality guava. The seeds can be soaked in water overnight. Then, mix soil and well-rotted organic compost in the pot. The soil should be loose and capable of easily draining excess water. After this, bury the seeds about 2-3 inches deep and sprinkle a little soil on top. Next, water as needed to maintain soil moisture.
This is the most important point in this process. A guava plant grown from seeds may require a significant amount of time to start bearing fruit, which can take about 1-2 years. In contrast, if you bring a healthy grafted plant from a nursery and plant it in a pot, the probability of getting fruit will be higher. Therefore, if your goal is not just to grow a plant but to soon enjoy homegrown guavas, a grafted plant is the more suitable option.
The guava plant loves the sun. It should always be placed in a location where it receives good direct sunlight. You should avoid placing the plant in a corner of the house where it is shaded for most of the day. If the plant receives enough sun, its growth will be good.
The guava plant needs watering, but this does not mean that the pot should be kept constantly full of water. Watering should be based on soil moisture. Excessive and frequent watering can lead to waterlogging in the pot, which is harmful to the plant's roots. Therefore, when watering, you must also check whether excess water drains out of the pot.
Final care and own harvest
The most pleasant thing about growing guava in a pot is that it does not require a large garden. You only need to choose the right plant or seeds at the beginning, take a large pot, take care of the soil and fertilizers, and ensure the plant has good lighting.
