Displaying items by tag: Aggregates
Vicat to implement Carbon8 Systems carbon capture and use system at Montalieu cement plant
10 July 2020France: UK-based Carbon8 Systems has announced plans for the commercial implementation of its carbon capture and use (CCU) system at Vicat’s Montalieu integrated cement plant in France. It follows successful demonstration projects at cement plants in the UK and Canada.
The company’s CO2ntainer product will be deployed directly onsite at the plant and integrated into Vicat's existing industrial processes. It will capture CO2 directly from the plant's flue gas emissions and use this as part of its Accelerated Carbonisation Technology (ACT) process. This accelerates the carbonation of cement bypass dust into lightweight aggregates. In its first phase of operation it will process and convert up to 12,000t of cement bypass dust.
Cemex invests in Arqlite
08 July 2020US: Mexico-based Cemex has announced its investment in Arqlite, a producer of aggregates from waste plastic. Arqlite won the Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition in 2019. Other investors in the company, which began its research and development process in Argentina in 2016, include Kamay Ventures and Chris Graff.
The Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition 2020 remains open to applicants until 26 July 2020.
Canada: Haver & Boecker Niagara has launched a new service programme. Called PROcheck, the programme conducts operational analysis of screens used in raw materials processing. PROcheck reports to Haver & Boecker, which is then able to recommend to producers the best practices for raw materials processing proficiency. Haver & Boecker Niagara North America and Australia president Karen Thompson said, “By partnering with our customers through the PROcheck service programme, we are monitoring the efficiency of their screening process to identify potential problems early on.”
Thompson said, “We are experts at looking at the big picture,” “We engineer and manufacture both vibrating screens and screen media, and this gives us the insight to offer valuable advice producers won’t find elsewhere.”
Argentina: Loma Negra’s sales of cement, masonry and lime fell by 26% year-on-year to 1.13Mt in first quarter of 2020. The decline was driven by the coronavirus lockdown in Argentina, where the subsidiary of Brazil’s InterCement has most of its sales. Concrete and aggregate sales volumes declined also. The company’s new revenue dropped by 29.6% to US$115m and its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 17.9% to US$38.6m. However, the company’s accountant adjustment for use in so-called ‘hyperinflationary economies’ made a negative impact on these figures. With this adjustment removed both revenue and earnings reportedly rose in the first quarter.
“By the end of the first quarter the coronavirus broke out, bringing additional challenges to the already adverse background,” said Sergio Faifman, Loma Negra’s chief executive officer (CEO). He added that cement demand in Argentina nationally contracted by around 29% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020.
The cement producer temporarily suspended its production facilities and its L´Amalí Expansion project in late March 2020 due to the government lockdown. Production and dispatches of cement were restarted in early April 2020 following the implementation of new sanitation protocols. The company has now resumed working on its upgrade project at L´Amalí.
Eagle Materials sells aggregates and concrete operations
22 April 2020US: Eagle Materials has sold its Western Aggregates and Mathews Ready Mix subsidiaries for a combined value of US$93.5m. Eagle’s President and chief executive officer (CEO), Michael Haack said that the transaction represented the sale of non-core assets on the heavy-side of the company that do not provide essential support to its primary cement plant network.
Akhangarantsement plant receives rotary kiln housing
15 April 2020Uzbekistan: Eurocement subsidiary Akhangarantsement has reported the successful installation of rotary kiln housing at its upcoming 3.0Mt/yr integrated Akhangarantsement plant. The Uzbekistan Daily newspaper has reported that workers completed internal and external welding on the kiln body, while work on jaw and hammer crushers for the raw materials and clinker grinding plants is ongoing. The project is on schedule for completion in mid-2020.
A short look at low carbon cement and concrete
01 April 2020Cement and concrete products with sustainability credentials have increased in recent years as societies start to demand decarbonisation. In spite of the recent drop in the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) price, there has been a trend in recent years in the construction industry towards offerings with better environmental credentials. Indeed, this week’s position paper from Cembureau on a carbon border mechanism concerns directly the growth of these kinds of products within Europe. Typically, the higher profile projects have been slag cement or concrete implementations such as Hanson’s use of its Regen cement substitute in a London sewer project or David Ball Group’s Cemfree concrete in a road project also in the UK. In this short review we’ll take a selective look at a few of the so-called low carbon cement and concrete products currently available.
Table 1: Some examples of methods to reduce embodied CO2 in cement and concrete. Note - the product examples are selective. In some cases many other products are available.
Material | Type | Method | Product examples |
Cement | SCM cement | Lower clinker factor | Many products |
Cement | Limestone calcined clay cement | Lower clinker factor | LC3, FutureCem, Polysius activated clay, H-EVA |
Cement | Calcium silicate cement | Reduced process emissions | Solidia, Celitement |
Cement | Recycled concrete fines | Reduced lifecycle emissions | Susteno |
Cement | Geopolymer cement | Reduced process emissions | Vertua |
Cement | Calcium sulphoaluminate cements | Reduced process emissions | Many products |
Concrete | CO2 curing/mineralisation | Uses CO2 and reduces water usage | Solidia, CarbonCure Technologies |
Concrete | Recycled concrete coarse | Reduced lifecycle emissions | Evopact, EcoCrete, FastCarb |
Concrete | SCM concrete | Uses less or no cement | Cemfree, Carbicrete, Regen |
Concrete | Uses less cement in mix | Uses less cement | |
Concrete | Admixtures | Uses less cement | |
Concrete | Locally sourced aggregate / better supply chain logistics | Reduced transport emissions | |
Concrete | Geopolymer concrete | Uses no cement | E-Crete |
Concrete | Graphene concrete | Uses less cement | Concrene |
Concrete | Carbon offsetting | Separate offsetting scheme | Vertua |
Looking at cement first, the easiest way for many producers to bring a lower carbon product to market has been to promote cements made using secondary cementitious materials (SCM) such as granulated blast furnace slag or fly ash. These types of cements have a long history, typically in specialist applications and/or in relation to ease of supply. For example, cement producers in eastern India often manufacture slag cements owing to the number of local steel plants. However, cement producers have more recently started to publicise their environmental credentials as they reduce the clinker factor of the final product. Alongside this though, in Europe especially, a number of so-called low carbon cement producers have appeared on the scene such as EcoCem and Hoffman Green Technologies. These newer producers tend to offer SCM cement products or other low carbon ones built around a grinding model. It is likely that their businesses have benefitted from tightening EU environmental legislation. How far cement producers can pivot to SCM cement products is contentious given that slag and fly ash are finite byproducts of other industries that are also under pressure to decarbonise. Although it should be noted that other SCMs such as pozzolans exist.
As will be seen below a few of the methods to reduce embodied CO2 in cement and concrete can be used in both materials. SCMs are no exception and hold a long history in concrete usage. As mentioned above David Ball Group sells Cemfree a concrete product that contains no cement. Harsco Environmental, a minerals management company, invested US$3m into Carbicrete, a technology start-up working on a cement-free concrete, in late 2019.
Limestone calcined clay cements are the next set of products that are starting to make an appearance through the work of the Swiss-government backed LC3 project, more commercial offerings like FutureCem from Cementir and H-EVA from Hoffman Green Technologies and today’s announcement about ThyssenKrupp’s plans to fit the Kribi cement plant in Cameroon with its Polysius activated clay system. They too, like SCM cements, reduce the clinker factor of the cement. The downside is that, as in the name, the clay element needs to be calcined requiring capital investment, although LC3 make a strong case in their literature about how fast these costs can be recouped in a variety of scenarios.
Calcium silicate cements offer reduced process emissions by decreasing the lime content of the clinker lowering the amount of CO2 released and bringing down the temperature required in the kiln to make the clinker. Solidia offers its calcium silicate cement as part of a two-part system with a CO2 cured concrete. In the US LafargeHolcim used Solidia’s product in a commercial project in mid-2019 at a New Jersey paver and block plant. Solidia’s second core technology is using CO2 to cure concrete and reducing water usage. They are not alone here as Canada’s CarbonCure Technologies uses CO2 in a similar way with their technology. In their case they focus more on CO2 mineralisation. In Germany, Schwenk Zement backed the Celitement project, which developed a hydraulic calcium hydro silicate based product that does not use CO2 curing. Celitement has since become part of Schwenk Zement.
Solidia isn’t the only company looking at two complementary technologies along the cement-concrete production chain. A number of companies are looking at recycling concrete and demolition waste. Generally this splits into coarse waste that is used as an aggregate substitute in concrete and fine waste that is used to make cement. LafargeHolcim has Evopact for the coarse waste and Susteno for the fine. HeidelbergCement has EcoCrete for the coarse and is researching the use of fines. Closing the loop for heavy building material producers definitely seems like the way to go at the moment and this view is reinforced by the involvement of the two largest multinational producers.
Of the rest of the other low carbon cement methods detailed in table 1 these cover other non-Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) such as geopolymer and calcium sulphoaluminate cements. The former are a type of alkali activated binder and generally lack common standards. The latter are similar to slag cements in that they are established specialist products with lower CO2 emissions than OPC.
With concrete when trying to make a low carbon product the first choice is whether to choose a low-carbon cement as the binder or even not to use cement at all in the case of Regen or Cemfree. From here the next step is to simply use less cement in a concrete mixture. There are a number of ways to do this from optimising aggregate gradation, following performance specifications more closely, using strength tests like maturity methods and generally adhering to quality control protocols better to deliver more consistency. Read the Mineral Production Association (MPA) publication Specifying Sustainable Concrete for more detail on this. Using concrete admixtures can also help make concrete more sustainable by improving quality and performance at construction sites through the use of plasticisers and accelerators, by decreasing embodied carbon through the use of water reducers and by improving the whole life performance of concretes. The use of locally-sourced aggregates is also worth noting here since it can reduce associated transport CO2 emissions.
More novel methods of reducing embodied CO2 emissions in concrete include the use of geopolymer concrete in the case of Zeobond Group’s E-Crete or adding graphene as Concrene does. Like geopolymer cements, geopolymer concretes are relatively new and lack common standards. Products like Concrene, meanwhile, remain currently at the startup level. Finally, if all else fails, offsetting the CO2 released by a cement or concrete product is always an option. This is what Cemex has done with its Vertua Ultra Zero product. The first 70% reduction in embodied CO2 is gained through the use of geopolymer cement. Then the remaining 30% reduction is achieved through a carbon offsetting scheme via a carbon neutral certification verified by the Carbon Trust.
As can be seen, a variety of methods exist for cement and concrete producers to reduce the embodied CO2 of their products and call them ‘low-carbon.’ For the moment most remain in the ‘novelty section’ but as legislators promote and specifiers look for sustainable construction they continue to become more mainstream. What has been interesting to note from this short study is that some companies are looking at multiple solutions along the production and supply chain whilst others are concentrating on single ones. The companies looking at multiple methods range from the biggest building material producers like LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement to smaller newer ones like Solidia and Hoffman Green Technologies. Also of note is that many of these products have existed already in various forms for a long time like SCM cements and concretes or the many ways concretes can be made more sustainable through much simpler ways such as changing aggregate sourcing or working more efficiently. In many cases once markets receive sufficient stimulus it seems likely that low carbon cement and concrete products will proliferate.
Global Cement is researching a market report on low carbon cement and concrete. If readers have any comments to make please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Holcim Philippines records profit boom
02 March 2020Philippines: Holcim Philippines has recorded a profit of US$70.9m in 2019, up by 41% from US$50.3m in 2018. This was in spite of a 5.9% year-on-year sales fall to US$660m from US$701m in 2018. The Philippines Star newspaper has reported that a more favourable product mix and the steady contribution of its aggregates unit helped Holcim Philippines to offset the effects of slowing construction activity throughout the year. Holcim Philippines president and CEO John Stull said that the company is ‘well-positioned to deliver sustainable and healthy growth to shareholders and continue support to the country’s development.’
In 2019 Holcim Philippines brought its total production capacity to 10Mt/yr with the completion of upgrades at its integrated Bulacan, Davao and La Union plants. In March 2019 it launched Solido, a blended cement suited to use in road and infrastructure construction.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission clears Barro Group’s acquisition of stake in Adelaide Brighton
31 January 2020Australia: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says that Barro Group’s acquisition of a 43% stake in Adelaide Brighton will not ‘substantially’ lessen competition. The ACCC examined the completed acquisition closely because the two vertically integrated companies have overlap in the market for the supply of cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates.
It found Barro and Adelaide Brighton will continue to face competition from Boral, Holcim and Hanson, three large vertically integrated competitors with national operations, along with a number of smaller independent competitors. The ACCC looked at competition impacts on the pre-mixed concrete and aggregates markets in Melbourne, Brisbane and Townsville, where Barro and Adelaide Brighton’s operations overlap and did not identify any areas of concern.
Barro did not seek informal merger clearance from the ACCC prior to acquiring Adelaide Brighton. However, the ACCC says it may reopen its investigation if it receives further information that alters its current conclusions.
Hanson appoints Andrew Simpson as packed products director
29 January 2020UK: Hanson has appointed Andrew Simpson as its packed products director, adding operational responsibility to his commercial remit. He is responsible for sales of all of its packed products, including cement, ready-to-use concrete and aggregates, and will now also look after manufacturing at the company’s ready-to-use production site in Nuneaton, as well as its construction aggregates packing plants across the country.
Simpson started his career with Hanson in 1997 when he was appointed area sales manager for Castle Cement, part of the HeidelbergCement Group, which bought Hanson in 2007. Since then he has held a number of different sales roles and attained a degree in Business Studies from De Montfort University in Leicester. In 2017 he was honoured with the freedom of the City of London and installed as a Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Builders Merchants in recognition of his work within the builders’ merchants’ industry.