Displaying items by tag: Germany
Cool Planet Technologies and Hereon to supply carbon capture system for Holcim Deutschland’s Höver cement plant
09 November 2021Germany: Cool Planet Technologies and Hereon have signed a memorandum of understanding with Holcim Deutschland to deliver a carbon capture system for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) trial at the producer’s Höver cement plant in Lower Saxony. Cool Planet Technologies will install their system, which is based on Hereon’s PolyActive membrane technology. The system will have a capture capacity of 5600t/yr and operate from early 2022 to early-mid-2023. If successful, two subsequent expansions will increase the system’s capacity to 170,000t/yr, commencing operation in 2024, and 1.3Mt/yr, commencing in 2026.
The suppliers say that their membrane-based capture system is capable of reducing the energy intensity and eliminating the need for other chemical inputs in CCS.
Germany: HeidelbergCement recorded consolidated sales of Euro14bn in the first nine months of 2021, up by 7% year-on-year from Euro13.1bn in the corresponding period of 2020. Revenues rose in all regions, except for North America, where they fell by 0.1% to Euro3.51bn. The company’s cement sales were 95.7Mt, up by 6% from 90.1Mt, while its ready-mixed concrete sales were 35.7Mm3, up by 4% from 34.4Mm3. Cement sales grew across every region, and recorded the sharpest increase in Western and Southern Europe, of 11% to 23Mt from 20.7Mt.
The group said that ‘significant’ energy cost inflation impacted upon results in the period. It launched a Euro500m cost mitigation programme and initiated the divestment of some Spanish assets and the acquisition of Tanga Cement in Tanzania.
Cementos Molins diversifies cement range with Calucem acquisition
04 November 2021Germany: Cementos Molins has concluded its acquisition of calcium aluminate cement producer Calucem following all regulatory approvals. Calucem operates the Pula grinding plant in Istria, Croatia and a bauxite quarry in Turkey. The new acquisition positions Cementos Molins as the world's second largest calcium aluminate cement producer. The company said that it expands and enhances its innovative and sustainable product range in line with its sustainable growth strategy.
CEO Julio Rodríguez said “I warmly welcome the Calucem team into the Cementos Molins family. Today marks a new and exciting milestone in the history of Calucem and Cementos Molins and, with this integration, we have excellent business development opportunities for a new step forward to our strategy of profitable and sustainable growth.”
Calucem CEO Yuri Bouwhuis said “We are excited about the integration into Cementos Molins, where we will accelerate our development and create together more value for all our stakeholders.”
Cemex Zement and Carbon Clean to install carbon capture system at Rüdersdorf cement plant
29 October 2021Germany: Cemex Zement’s Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg, cement plant is to host a new 100t/day carbon capture installation. Cemex Zement will collaborate with UK-based Carbon Clean on a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the project. The system will combine captured CO2 with sustainably sourced hydrogen in order to produce green synthetic hydrocarbons. The partners aim to increase the system’s CO2 capture capacity to 300t/day by 2026, before finally scaling it up to 2000t/day.
Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia regional president Sergio Menendez said “This project with Carbon Clean is the latest development in Cemex’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality at the Rüdersdorf cement plant by 2030, through our pioneering carbon neutral alliance with expert industrial consortiums. Carbon capture will play a fundamental role in the efforts to succeed at this goal and ensure our operations are more sustainable.”
China: Anhui Panjing Cement has ordered an upgrade to its production line from KHD and AVIC. The project includes: installing new triple cyclones in conjunction with existing preheater top stage twin cyclones; a partial modification of downcomer duct; installing a new preheater fan; adding optimised and larger dip tubes for the existing cyclones; installing a new Pyrobox type calciner firing system; adding new raw meal pipes for the two lowest cyclone stages; making calciner modification within the existing preheater building; and installing a new kiln drive system. Where possible the project plans to use reuse existing equipment. It is scheduled for completion by January 2022. It follows a previous upgrade at the plant in 2020 – 2021.
Other recent orders that KHD has announced with China-based cement companies include an upgrade to a production line at Hongshi Group’s Lanzhou plant in Gansu province and the installation of NOx-reducing modifications on a 5000t/day clinker production line operated by China United Cement Baoding.
Germany: Holcim Deutschland has signed a memorandum of understanding with Cool Planet Technologies (CPT) to build a pilot CO2 capture unit at Holcim’s Höver cement works, near Hannover, based on Hereon’s PolyActive membrane technology. The objective of the unit is to demonstrate the performance, economics and operability of the capture technology at scale. Following this the partners will seek to establish a framework for the technology’s implementation in Holcim’s other cement plants in Germany.
Initial tests are scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2022 with the first phase of the project, capturing 5600t/yr of CO2, scheduled for start-up in the second quarter of 2023. If successful, it is planned to expand the unit in two further phases capturing 170,000t/yr and 1.3Mt/yr starting-up in 2024 and 2026 respectively. The final phase will capture over 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the Höver plant and deliver the CO2 in high-purity liquid form for use or sequestration.
CPT is working with Hereon, part of the Helmholtz Association of Research Centres, Germany’s largest research organisation, to commercialise their PolyActive membrane technology after a decade of development. This technology is designed to capture CO2 from carbon rich gas streams and has already been technically proven in the laboratory and piloted in two coal-fired power stations.
In the two and a half years since Calix brought together cement producers across corporate and national boundaries to form the first Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC-1) consortium and commissioned a carbon capture installation at the Lixhe cement plant in Belgium on 10 May 2019, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has passed some major milestones. New installations have made Global Cement headlines from Canada (at Lehigh Cement’s Edmonton plant in November 2019) to China (at a China National Building Material (CNBM) plant in July 2021). Twelve other European cement plants now host current or planned carbon capture trials – including the first full-scale system, at HeidelbergCement’sBrevik plant in Norway. A second Calix-led project in Germany, LEILAC-2, attracted Euro16m-worth of funding from the European Union in April 2020.
The work of LEILAC-1 – backed by HeidelbergCement, Cemex, Lhoist, Tarmac and others, with Euro12m in funding – set the benchmark in innovation. Its pilot plant successfully captured 100% of 'unavoidable' process emissions by indirectly heating raw materials inside a vertical steel tube. Called direct capture, the model removes a CO2 separation step, as our subsequent price analysis will reflect.
1) Both limestone and raw meal may be processed;
2) CO2 is successfully separated;
3) The energy penalty for indirect calcination is not higher than for conventional direct calcination.
Additionally, Calix’s first departure into the cement sector has demonstrated that its model exhibits no operational deterioration, does not suffer from material build-up and has no impact on the host plant when used in cement production. The plant’s clinker capacity remained the same as before the trial. Most importantly of all, the Lixhe cement plant recorded no process safety incidents throughout the duration of the trial.
The study has also put an evidence-based price tag on industrial-scale CCS at a cement plant for the first time: Euro36.84/t. Figure 1 (below) plots the full-cycle costs of three different carbon capture installations at retrofitted 1Mt/yr cement plants using 100% RDF, including projections for transport and storage. Installation 1 is an amine-based carbon capture system of the kind installed in the Brevik cement plant’s exhaust stack; Installation 2 is the Calix direct capture system and Installation 3 consists of both systems in combination. Direct capture’s costs are the lowest, while the amine retrofit and the combination installation are close behind at Euro43.68/t and Euro43.25/t respectively.
Figure 1: Full-cycle costs of three different carbon capture installations at retrofitted 1Mt/yr cement plants using 100% RDF
Installations 1 and 3 both entail additional energy requirements for the separation of CO2 from flue gases and air. With the inclusion of the CO2 produced thereby, the cost of Installation 1 rises to Euro94/t of net CO2 emissions eliminated, more than double that of Installation 2 at Euro38.21/t. The combination of the two in Installation 3 costs Euro67.3/t, 76% more than direct capture alone. Figure 2 (below), breaks down the carbon avoidance costs for each one and compares them.
Figure 2: Carbon avoidance costs of three different carbon capture installations at retrofitted 1Mt/yr cement plants using 100% RDF
The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA)’s seven-point Roadmap to Net Zero strategy puts CCS at the forefront of concrete sector decarbonisation. CCS is expected to eliminate an increasing share of global concrete’s CO2 emissions, rising to 36% in 2050 – by then 1.37Bnt of a total 3.81Bnt. This will depend on affordability. Calix’s model has reduced the capital expenditure (CAPEX) of a carbon capture retrofit by 72% to Euro34m from Euro98m for the amine-based equivalent. When built as part of a new plant, the CAPEX further lowers to Euro27m. Both models may also be retrofitted together, for Euro99m. In future, Calix expects to install direct capture systems capable ofachieving Euro22/t of captured CO2. By contrast, the cost of emitting 1t of CO2 in the EU on 11 October 2021 was Euro59.15.
In what it calls the Decade to Deliver, the GCCA aims to achieve a 25% CO2 emissions reduction in global concrete production between 2020 and 2030, in which CCS plays only a minor part of less than 5%. LEILAC-1 presents a visionof affordable carbon avoidance which complements cement companies’ 2030 CO2 reduction aspirations.
Unlike conventional CCS methods, however, direct capture only does two thirds of a job – eliminating the emissions of calcination, but not combustion. This would appear to make it unsuited to cement’s longer-term aim of carbon neutrality by 2050 in line with the Paris Climate Accords’ 2°C warming scenario. On the other hand, direct capture is not designed to work alone. Calix recommends use of the technology in conjunction with a decarbonised fuel stream to eliminate the plant’s remaining direct emissions. This increases the price - by 47% to Euro56.05/t of CO2 avoided for biomassand by more than double to Euro104.48/t for an E-kiln.
The Lixhe cement plant’s carbon capture story is one of a successful crossover from one industry into another: Calix previously applied the technology in the Australian magnesite sector. Realisation of the Calix carbon capture vision in the global cement industry is a challenge primarily due to the scale of the task. It will require continued collaboration between companies and with partners outside of the industry. Further than this, parliaments must continue to enact legislation to make emission mitigation the economic choice for producers.
Germany: Scientists at the University of Kassel in Hessen have launched a study into the use of ash from waste incinerators in precast concrete production. The Hessische Allgemeine newspaper has reported that a waste-to-energy plant in Kassel will provide the ash for concrete production in partnership with local companies Kimm Baustoffe and Gebäudeke Baustoff-Recycling. The study aims to produce pre-cast concrete elements containing at least 30% ash, beginning with paving slabs and noise barriers.
Project leader David Laner said that ash has the potential to help lower concrete’s carbon footprint. He said “So far, it has been put to lesser-value uses; we make a product out of it - upcycling instead of downcycling.”
Aumund launches PREMAS 360° maintenance packages
07 October 2021Germany: Aumund has announced the launch of its PREMAS 360° packages. The three packages – basic, advanced, premium - combine quality Aumund all-around maintenance and inventory management support, extended warranties, physical inspections, cutting-edge Industry 4.0 monitoring of Aumund and other conveying equipment, technical training, emergency remote support and consultation programmes.
Managing Director Pietro de Michieli said “With PREMAS 360°, Aumund puts customer service to the forefront. Our goal is to reassure machine availability and reliability through the simplicity and flexibility of a fully bundled maintenance solution, to be a partner to our customers assisting them to reach operation excellence.”
HeidelbergCement acquires minority stake in Command Alkon
29 September 2021Germany: HeidelbergCement has invested in a 45% stake in Thoma Bravo’s supply chain software subsidiary Command Alkon. The group says that the companies’ collaboration can help advance heavy building materials supply chains’ digital transformation. It said that this will entail more transparent industry standards for seamless connectivity, improved solutions to customers’ everyday pain points, an increased pace in innovation and an acceleration of sustainability efforts. HeidelbergCement will continue to autonomously operate its proprietary digital product suite HConnect.
Chair Dominik von Achten said “As part of our Beyond 2020strategy, our clear goal is to become the first industrial tech company in our sector.” He added “We have made significant progress in our independently developed HConnect digital customer experience since its development in 2018. The investment in Command Alkon and the partnership with Thoma Bravo now allows us to monetise the hidden potential of our assets and translate it into a new growth path for HeidelbergCement. Together, we will build the digital ecosystem of the future for the heavy building materials industry.”