The Prince of Wales has been shown the next generation of carbon capture technology during a visit near Glasgow, as the world’s focus remains on the area during Cop26.

Arriving in an electric vehicle, Charles was shown carbon capture machine CycloneCC at Doosan Babcock in Renfrew, which its inventors at Carbon Clean describe as the world’s smallest device of its type.

Iain Tobin, Carbon Clean’s chief corporate officer, said of the royal visitor: “He was very impressed. He’s genuinely interested in what we’re trying to achieve, which is to bring cost-effective carbon capture technology to hard-to-abate industrial sectors.”

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Charles viewed the technology during a visit to Carbon Clean at Doosan Babcock, Renfrew (Andy Buchanan/PA)

Charles, who is also the Baron of Renfrew, asked questions of staff including Aniruddha Sharma, Carbon Clean’s co-founder and chief executive, and James Hall, the head of research at the company, who demonstrated the vast difference in size between the old carbon capture technology and the new CycloneCC.

Carbon was previously captured using a 15-metre device, which saw the pollutant mixed with a chemical to extract the carbon from the other gasses.

But the company has now created a much smaller device. Working like a washing machine, it uses a spinning mesh and a solvent to separate the gas which not only means it is much smaller, but it can also be more easily installed on site.

Mr Sharma said during the prince’s 30-minute visit that the development of the product, which is 10 times smaller than previous generations, would open up more space for decarbonisation.

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Charles was told how the smaller size of the new device can help the rollout of the technology (Andy Buchanan/PA)

Mr Tobin described it as a “game changer” for the industry.

Mr Sharma added: “The whole world is here and people are talking about phasing out coal.

“If cement was a country it would be the third largest emitter of CO2.

“Here is an example just outside the Cop where people can actually come and see how the future’s going to look – you can compress the size of all this equipment and scale it out.”

Charles signed the visitors’ book in the facility, which shows he was not the first royal to tour the site.

In June 2010, the Princess Royal opened the emissions reduction test facility at Doosan Babcock.