Displaying items by tag: UK
First Graphene consortium to start graphene-enhanced cement trial at Breedon Cement in June 2023
21 April 2023UK: A consortium led by Australia-based First Graphene including Breedon Cement, Morgan Sindall Construction and the University of Manchester plans to start a trial producing graphene-enhanced cement in June 2023. The project will aim to produce around 2000t of the cement in the first instance. Its performance as a binder in mortar and concrete systems will be analysed to assess the performance improvement, prior to use in real-world demonstrations by Morgan Sindall Construction. Data from Breedon and First Graphene production sites has already been analysed by the University of Manchester and found graphene enhanced cement to both offset CO2 and demonstrate potential mechanical benefits, even at graphene loading levels less than 0.06%.The project is supported by a Euro215m grant from the Innovate UK scheme.
Michael Bell, the managing director and chief executive officer of First Graphene, said “Our research and development in collaboration with some of the world’s most innovative materials technology organisations, coupled with buy-in from industry partners to trial our graphene products, sets the foundation for a strong commercialisation pathway.” He added, “Greening of the concrete and cement sector provides our company with a great opportunity to strengthen both our revenue and ultimately profitability as market demand for decarbonisation technologies and materials increases.”
Building new buildings from old ones
19 April 2023Holcim launched its formal take on construction and demolition waste (CDW) this week with the unveiling of its ECOCycle technology platform at the BAU architecture fair in Munich. This amounts to managing the distribution, processing, grinding and recycling of CDW back into new building material products. It claims that its concrete, cement and aggregate products can contain 10 - 100% of CDW with no drop in performance.
It is hard to gauge whether this is marketing for existing operations or the start of something new. Yet, in its 2022 Sustainability Report, Holcim said that it recycled 6.8Mt of CDW back into building products and that it is on track to meet its target of 10Mt by 2025. This target was neatly put into words as wanting “to build more new buildings from old ones.” Ahead of the announcement of the launch of ECOCycle, it added that it was going to roll out its Susteno product around Europe. This product, made from 20% CDW, was originally released in Switzerland in the late 2010s. Notably, recent acquisitions by Holcim that connect to its growing focus on CDW include Poland-based Ol-Trans in July 2022, UK-based Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials in October 2022 and UK-based Sivyer Logistics in April 2023.
As covered by Global Cement Weekly in February 2023, Holcim is not the only heavy building materials company pivoting to CDW. The European Union (EU) set a 70% recovery target for it in 2020 and various cement company sustainability reports have described the region as being receptive to moves into this sector. Cemex set up a global waste management subsidiary called Regenera at the end of January 2023. This division covers both alternative fuels, CDW and industrial by-products, so it is more general than Holcim’s current effort, but it shows intent in the same direction. Cemex previously set a target of recycling 14Mt/yr CDW by 2030.
Heidelberg Materials has been working on developing recycled concrete paste and its ReConcrete-360° concrete recycling process. As of its last sustainability report, this process had been tested at the pilot scale and is now being developed and scaled for industrial application. In addition to acquiring UK-based Mick George Group in December 2022 Heidelberg Materials has also purchased Germany-based RWG Holding in January 2023 and Germany-based SER Group in February 2023. All three companies operate in the CDW sector.
The other notable contribution that Heidelberg Materials has been making is as a partner of the ‘Circular City - Building Material Registry for the City of Heidelberg’ project. When Heidelberg Materials announced its involvement in the initiative in mid-2022 it said it was the first city in Europe to apply the principles of urban mining. The goal of the project is to take an inventory of the city’s buildings and then compile it in a digital material registry. The basis for the registry is the Urban Mining Screener developed by EPEA (Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency). This programme can estimate the composition of buildings based on building data such as location, year of construction, building volume or building type. Circular economy supply chains can then act accordingly when a building is retrofitted, demolished or deconstructed. So, for example, at the start of the project it worked out that a former US Army housing estate conversion site was calculated to contain approximately 466,000t of material, with about half in the form of concrete, a fifth in the form of bricks and 5% as metal.
That last example compares to a European Commission estimate that, as a whole, Europe generates around 450 - 500Mt/yr of CDW. A third of this is concrete. As with alternative fuels and slag previously, this may be money going into the ground. Recycling building materials is not new but any significant increase in reusing CDW that can reduce the clinker factor of cement (and the cement factor of concrete) offers a potentially cheaper route to building materials decarbonisation than carbon capture and utilisation/storage at current costs. Hence the continued interest.
Switzerland: Holcim has launched ECOCycle, its initiative to recycle construction demolition materials into new building products. It says it can recycle construction demolition materials across a broad range of applications, from decarbonised raw materials in low-carbon cement formulation, to aggregates in concrete and fillers in road construction.
Jan Jenisch, the chief executive officer of Holcim, said “Across all metropolitan areas where we operate, we are at the forefront of driving circular construction to build new from the old. With our ECOCycle technology we can build cities from cities, recycling 100% of construction demolition materials into new solutions, so everything gets reused and nothing gets lost. With our world’s growing population and urbanisation, circular construction is essential to build a future that works for people and the planet.”
The building materials producer is deploying its ECOCycle technology across its range of products to scale up circular construction. It says that its process enables concrete, cement and aggregates to contain from 10 - 100% recycled construction and demolition waste with no change in performance. The initiative is supported by distributing, processing, grinding and recycling construction and demolition materials into new building material products.
ECOCycle brings together previous work Holcim has conducted in the field such as launching a cement in Switzerland made with 20% demolition and construction waste. The company is now launching this product elsewhere in Europe. In France it is building an affordable housing complex using 100% ECOCycle recycled concrete. In the UK it is building a residential area with 50% ECOCycle aggregates that have been made from 100% recycled construction demolition materials.
Ireland/UK: A six-month feasibility study conducted by Mannok at its Derrylin plant, in conjunction with Catagen, has found a number of ways that the cement producer can reduce its CO2 emissions. Using Catagen’s HGEN renewable hydrogen generator with waste heat recovery could potentially decrease the cement plant’s annual CO2 emissions by 7%. In addition the study found that using biohydrogen generation from waste biomass could generate larger volumes of hydrogen with less renewable energy required, compared to electrolytic hydrogen generation. Using Catagen’s BIOHGEN process in this way could minimise carbon intensity by a further 18%. A combined group of engineers from Mannok and Catagen worked on the project.
Kevin Lunney, operations director at Mannok, said “We are very excited to be working with the Catagen team, who have demonstrated a deep level of technical ability and competency during the feasibility work. I have no doubt that Mannok will derive significant value from the work already completed, with many new opportunities for collaboration now presenting that we would not have considered before. Achieving Net Zero is now the primary goal for our business and I expect Catagen will play a significant role in our achieving that goal, which we expect will have major benefits for the sector overall.”
In early April 2023 Mannok revealed that it had secured funding from the UK Government Green Energy Scheme to support its energy transformation programme. The first phase of the initiative, which the funding will support, is the generation of onsite green hydrogen to replace the use of diesel in over 70% of the company’s 150 heavy-goods truck fleet.
Belfast-based Catagen started as a testing company providing emissions data to the automotive sector. It has started working in other industrial sectors - such as cement, glass and steel in Europe and the US – as part of its ClimaHtech product range.
UK: Legal & General Capital, an alternative investment arm of financial services company Legal & General, has invested around US$15.5m in Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC) and other companies as part of its strategy to decarbonise the residential sector. It is also investing in Hometree and SunRoof, as well as increasing its existing investment in Sero Technologies.
CEC is developing process to create net zero-CO2 cement product using recycled concrete paste. It launched a two-year industrial trial of its Cement 2 Zero project in February 2023.
Russia/Uzbekistan: The US Department of State has imposed sanctions upon USM Holding including its subsidiaries Akkermann Cement and USM Cement in Russia, and Akhangarancement in Uzbekistan. The action is intended to target company owner Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov and his various business interests. Other USM companies in the iron, steel, copper, gold, telecommunications and real estate sectors are also affected.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control noted that Usmanov was, “one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires, with vast holdings across multiple sectors of the Russian Federation economy as well as internationally.” It added that he was linked to multiple senior Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as Dmitry Medvedev, current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia and former President and Prime Minister of Russia. Usmanov has also been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the UK.
These latest US sanctions are in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Companies on the sanction list are forbidden to conduct business transactions with any US citizens.
Akkermann Cement operates two cement plants and a network of 12 terminals in Russia. It acquired a majority stake in Uzbekistan-based Akhangarancement in early 2022.
UK: Germany-based Aumund Group has appointed Martin Dummigan as the managing director of its Samson Materials Handling subsidiary. He succeeds Dale Lockley in the post.
Dummigan holds a master’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Queen’s University in Belfast. He started his career in 1990 as a research and development engineer. Over the next 30 years he has held numerous manufacturing and corporate management positions at companies including Telestack and Terex in various countries including China, the US, Japan and South Africa. His last position was as the Group Vice President of Operations for Astec Material Solutions. He is also a co-founder of the Spadetown Brewery based in Northern Ireland.
Chayton Capital and Montenegro government to assess feasibility of Pljevlja building materials complex
12 April 2023Montenegro: UK-based private equity firm Chayton Capital has agreed to fund the feasibility study for the establishment of a joint public/private building materials production complex at the site of the Plejevlja energy hub. The complex will include a cement plant and cement bonded particle boards plant. Emerging Market Watch News has reported that the firm will also be involved in the modernisation of a coal-fired power plant at the site. The total budget for the project is Euro700m.
Holcim acquires Sivyer Logistics
06 April 2023UK: Holcim has acquired leading London construction and demolition waste (CDW) recycling company Sivyer Logistics. Sivyer Logistics produced 500,000t of recycled aggregates and manufactured soils from 1Mt of CDW across its six sites in 2022. Holcim says that the acquisition represents a step towards realising its target of 10Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste in Holcim products by 2025.
The group’s Europe regional head Miljan Gutovic said “Sivyer Logistics is an excellent addition to help us drive circular construction.” He added “I look forward to welcoming all employees of Sivyer Logistics and investing in our next era of growth together.”
UK: Hanson UK says that its planned installation of a carbon capture system at its Padeswood cement plant in Flintshire has proceeded to the due diligence and negotiations stage. The project aims to achieve net zero CO2 cement production by capturing 800,000t/yr of CO2. It is part of the HyNet North West array of projects, which combines green hydrogen and carbon capture to build a first-of-its-kind industrial decarbonisation cluster.
Hanson UK CEO Simon Willis said “I would like to thank the government and all of those that supported us in our bid to receive funding which will enable us to help decarbonise the construction industry and meet our overall ambition to become a net zero business. This global exemplar project will provide net zero construction materials for major projects across the country, from new offshore wind farms and nuclear power stations to clean transport infrastructure.”