Displaying items by tag: Biomass
Huaxin Cement Tanzania Maweni Company commissions new clinker line at Maweni cement plant
05 February 2024Tanzania: Huaxin Cement Tanzania Maweni Company has commissioned a new 4000t/day clinker line at its Mavini cement plant, after completing the Phase 2 of the plant’s construction. China Industrial and Economic Information Database has reported that this phase of construction commenced in August 2022. The new line is equipped with a 15MW biomass-fired power plant.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021 – 2025), Huaxin Cement aims to quadruple its production capacity outside of China to 16.5Mt/yr. 6.07Mt/yr-worth of this will come online in 2024 and 2025. The company says that its strategy partly reflects the slowing of its domestic market since 2022.
Spain: Cemex España has announced its participation in the HYIELD consortium, which plans to build a waste-to-hydrogen demonstration plant at the producer’s Alcanar cement plant in Catalonia. The demonstration plant will process a total of 2000t of biogenic waste to produce 400t of green hydrogen for use as fuel, fertiliser and for other applications. The trial commands Euro10m in funding from the EU’s research and innovation funding programme Horizon Europe. Parent company Cemex believes that the technology being demonstrated at Alcanar has the potential to process 300Mt/yr of waste across Europe and produce 30Mt/yr of hydrogen.
Cemex’s Europe, Middle East and Africa regional president Sergio Menendez said “As part of its drive towards reaching net zero by 2050, Cemex is committed to partnering with like-minded organisations to explore the very latest innovations in more sustainable technology that can support the cement production process. We are proud to provide one of our cement plants in Spain as the location for the HYIELD trial and excited to see the outcomes from this research and development project.”
Update on synthetic fuels, June 2023
28 June 2023Cemex highlighted its Clyngas project at its Alicante cement plant in Spain this week. The project will produce synthesis gas (syngas) from different types of waste for direct injection into the burner at the plant during the combustion process. It is being run in conjunction with Waste to Energy Advanced Solutions (WTEnergy), a company that Cemex invested in at the end of 2022. It is also receiving Euro4.4m in funding from the European Commission (EC) as part of its innovation fund for small scale projects. The initiative estimates that it will save over 400,000t of equivalent CO2 during the first 10 years of the project's life by replacing petroleum coke with syngas.
Clyngas is another example of Cemex’s innovation with alternative fuels for cement and lime. It follows on from the group’s work with hydrogen injection into cement kilns. As presented at the 15th Global CemFuels Conference 2022 it has been using hydrogen in low volumes as a combustion enhancer in more than 20 plants worldwide. However, it was also looking into using hydrogen more directly as a fuel and as a feedstock for other alternative fuels. WTEnergy’s gasification process could potentially link up to this as it converts waste streams such as wood chips, agricultural waste, refuse derived fuel (RDF), solid recovered fuel (SRF), dry sewage sludge, meat and bone meal, poultry litter and plastics into syngas. WTEnergy then proposes that its gasification process and/or the syngas can be used for power generation and thermal applications. In the case of the Clyngas project it will be the latter, as the gasification process will be used to boost the burnability characteristics of RDF with a high biomass content. One part of this to note is that the syngas can potentially be used to manufacture hydrogen. This would be a useful capability for a cement company, for example, that was already using alternative fuels and was now considering further decarbonisation by switching to using hydrogen.
A few other cement companies have been looking at synthetic fuels too, but this has generally been as a by-product of carbon capture and utilisation. This week Lafarge France, for example, said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Axens, EDF and IFP Energies Nouvelles for a synthetic fuel production trial. Its plan is to build a unit that will produce synthetic kerosene using captured CO2 from a carbon capture installation at Lafarge France's Saint-Pierre-La-Cour cement plant. The kerosene will then be sold to airlines. Other examples of cement companies looking at using captured CO2 to manufacture synthetic fuels include Finnsementti’s pre-engineering study with Aker Carbon Capture to consider producing methanol as a fuel for transport, Holcim’s and TotalEnergies’ various plans of what to do with the CO2 captured from the-to-be upgraded Obourg cement plant and Cemex Deutschland’s ambitions for its Rüdersdorf plant.
As can be seen above there are different types of synthetic fuels and cement companies are at the research and pilot stages. Although there isn’t a commonly accepted definition of what a synthetic fuel is, the general meaning is that of a fuel made from feedstock using a chemical reaction as opposed to, say, a refining process. The wide variety of potential synthetic fuels puts the confusion over the different types of hydrogen into perspective. However, this may be a problem for a later date if usage by cement companies becomes more serious.
What is a problem, though, has been the EC’s planned legislation to phase out the use of industrial CO2 in synthetic fuels by 2041. Cembureau, the European cement industry association, warned in late 2022 of the issues this would pose for industries trying to find a way to utilise their CO2 emissions where storage was too difficult or expensive. Its view was that while synthetic fuels using industrial CO2 are not fully net-zero, as the captured CO2 is later released into the atmosphere, it is a necessary short to medium term step for sectors trying to make the transition. Companies trying to build industrial-scale chemical plants for synthetic fuels need running periods of 20 to 30 years to achieve payback. As of March 2023 Cembureau was still concerned about the implication of proposed regulations, specifically with regards to the proposed criteria for which synthetic fuels could be used, based on their greenhouse gas emissions savings (at least 70% compared to the regular fuels being replaced). It directly linked this to synthetic fuels projects being launched by the cement sector that might be adversely affected by the new rules. The EC published the legislation in late June 2023 and it is set to become legal in mid-July 2023.
Using synthetic fuels either as a fuel or a by-product from cement production is an area of interest currently with the projects detailed above and others in progress. One vision for their use in Europe, at least, is that they might offer a route for carbon capture for cement plants without access to the logistic networks necessary for sequestration. Whether they find a place in cement manufacture either on a transitional basis or over a longer term should become clearer over the coming decade. Yet the EC’s new rules are likely to slow this process down as at least some of the planned pilots may become unviable in Europe. Other jurisdictions around the world take note.
UK lime sector commits to net zero by 2040
22 June 2023UK: Mineral Products Association Lime (MPA Lime), the body representing the UK lime sector, has launched the Net Negative 2040 Roadmap. The association said that the roadmap sets out the strategy for its to 'go beyond net zero' by 2040. The industry will rely on the deployment of fuel switching, carbon capture, renewable energy sources and green transport technologies, among other approaches. It called on the government to support its aims through the implementation of carbon accounting, subsidisation of renewables and decarbonisation technologies, the development of green hydrogen infrastructure, ensuring that UK lime can remain competitive in the UK and overseas markets.
MPA Lime director Mike Haynes said “Each lever will contribute to decarbonisation – many initiatives are happening already or will come on stream this decade." He added "The combination of using biomass fuels with carbon capture and lime product carbonation will result in removal of 250,000t/yr of atmospheric CO2, making the sector net negative overall. Other levers, especially indirect emissions and transportation, require broader collaboration and enabling action by government and other industries.”
Through their actions to date, MPA Lime members reduced their absolute CO2 emissions by 25% between 2005 and 2022.
Sweden: Nordkalk has produced lime at its Koping lime plant using 30% biofuel as alternative fuel (AF). The producer now aims to increase the substitution rate to 50%. Nordkalk subsidiary Kalkproduktion Storugns recently began trialling 100% liquid biofuel substitution in continuous operations at its Larbro lime plant. ENP Newswire has reported that both projects are part of a CO2 emissions reduction initiative in partnership with the Swedish Energy Agency and Umea University.
Sumitomo Osaka Cement powers head office using biomass
01 February 2023Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has started using electricity generated from biomass to power its head office in the Shiodome Sumitomo Building in Tokyo. The electricity is generated at the company’s company's Tochigi biomass power plant in Sano and then fed into the general grid. The cement producer and the country are using a feed-in-tariff (FIT) non-fossil energy certificate system to track the use of electricity generated from non-fossil fuel generated sources.
US: A team from Washington State University (WSU) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has successfully used waste crustacean shells in the production of concrete. ZME Science News has reported that the materials consist of calcium carbonate and 20 – 30% chitin, a nanoparticle biopolymer. When used as an additive in concrete production, the shells increase the set product’s compressive strength by 12% and its flexural strength by 40%. The team is now developing a methodology for the industrial-scale production of shell-based additives.
WSU researcher Professor Michael Wolcott said “Those are very significant numbers. If you can reduce the amount that you use and get the same mechanical function or structural function and double its lifetime, then you’re able to significantly reduce the carbon emissions of the built environment.”
Germany: Zement- und Kalkwerke Otterbein plans to invest Euro10m in upgrades to its Otterbein cement plant to increase the sustainability of cement production there. The new equipment will include a hot gas filter SCR catalytic converter system. The producer says that this will install the facility as one of the lowest-CO2 cement plants in the world. Local press has reported that, after commissioning the new system, the company plans to increase its approved substitution of biomass as fuel to 100% from 60%.
UK: Karbonite UK has developed a new supplementary cementitious material consisting of mineral feedstock, geopolymers and waste biomass. The process also involves CO2 sequestration and liquid-infused CO2 absorption within the mineral structure. The material, called Karbonite, is activated at 750 – 850°C, releasing water, which is captured for recycling. Its CO2 emissions are 2.7kg/t, according to Karbonite UK. The developer says that Karbonite ground with 50% clinker yields a cement of equal compressive strength to ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
Karbonite UK is currently preparing a final report on the product for a major cement producer.
Managing director Rajeev Sood said “Karbonite offers a wealth of potential to an industry targeting net zero. We are excited to talk to cement and concrete producers about how they could integrate Karbonite technology into their existing process.”
Malaysia: Borneo Oil has increased its investment in the upcoming ILPP cement plant in Sabah to US$12m. The oil company has signed a deal to buy a 19.5% stake in the cement company from Makin Teguh. Borneo Oil previously bought shares from Makin Teguh in late 2021. The company said it is making the move to benefit from a positive outlook for the cement sector in the Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area. It estimates that Sabah has a demand of 1.2 – 1.4Mt/yr of cement.
Borneo Oil says it is the largest private owner of limestone reserves of cement grade quality in Sabah. The ILPP plant is located next to a limestone quarry owned by Borneo Oil and a long-term supply contract for the unit is already in place. The ILPP plant will have a cement production capacity of 0.2Mt/yr when it is completed. Commissioning of the plant is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022. The owners say it will be the first integrated plant in Sabah. It will also be the first micro-cement plant in Malaysia that will use heat recovery and a mixture of fuels, including heavy fuel oil and biomass such as a palm kernel shells.