Displaying items by tag: CO2
Austria/Germany: Rohrdorfer Group and gas network company Bayernets have published a feasibility study for a proposed CO2 transport network in Bavaria in Upper Austria. The first stage of the CO2peline plan will be to create an ‘island’ network between the Rohrdorfer cement plant in Upper Bavaria and the so-called ‘Bavarian chemical triangle.’ An additional connection to the industrial and chemical region of Linz in Austria would add additional CO₂ sources, places of use and temporary storage sites to the grid. Further expansion plans could see the network expanded to cover the whole of Bavaria. A future connection to a Germany-based national network and international routes could further link the network to other locations where CO2 is both produced and used, as well as creating routes to sequestration sites.
No dates have been released for the proposed CO2 pipeline network. However, the project notes that Germany is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2045 and Bavaria and Austria by 2040.
Spain: Cementos Tudela Veguín plans to spend more than Euro62.5m on sustainability-enhancing upgrades to its three cement plants in Asturias and one in León. The plans consist of upgrades to fuelling systems that will enable the plants to use biofuels and hydrogen, as well as efficiency upgrades. The La Nueva España newspaper has reported that the producer is seeking to secure European Union (EU) funding for the project. The region of Asturias is eligible for Euro263m-worth of regional decarbonisation funding under the EU's Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation.
A planned second phase of upgrades will consist of the installation of carbon capture systems at the plants. They emitted 1.67Mt CO2 in 2022. 1.12Mt (67%) arose from the decarbonisation of limestone and 0.55Mt (33%) came from the combustion of fuel.
Thailand: US-based Rondo Energy and Siam Cement Group (SCG) plan to expand the production capacity of a heat battery storage unit at a SCG plant to 90GWh/yr. Once complete the site will reportedly have a production capacity larger than any current heat battery-supported manufacturing facility worldwide and will save up to 12Mt/yr of CO2. The SCG site already has a capacity of 2.4GWh/yr.
SCG’s executive vice president Thammasak Sethaudom said “Rondo offers an innovative solution to reduce the carbon emissions from industrial process heat used in factories worldwide. SCG can use Rondo’s technology to lower our own carbon emissions and SCG Cleanergy can partner with Rondo to help our customers cut emissions.” He added “We also realised that we can leverage our 70 years of technical expertise in the refractory business and supply chain.”
Rondo heat batteries consist of refractory bricks capable of storing renewable energy as heat. The heat energy can then be returned to an industrial process as hot air or steam. SCG invested in Rondo Energy in 2022.
This story was amended on 4 July 2023, after a previous version erroneously stated the location of the plant as Ukraine. Global Cement apologises for this error.
Global Cement and Concrete Association announces Innovandi Open Challenge 2023 shortlist
30 June 2023World: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has named the 15 anticipated deliverers of low-CO2 cement and concrete production shortlisted for participation in its second Innovandi Open Challenge. The association chose the start-ups based on their potential to deliver CO2 emissions reduction in the global cement and concrete sector in line with its Concrete Future 2050 Net Zero Roadmap. The applicants are presenting their pitches to GCCA members on 30 June 2023. All those accepted will gain access to members' plants, labs, networks and expertise. The following start-ups made the Innovandi Open Challenge 2023 shortlist:
Arrakis Materials |
US |
Carbon negative materials for concrete |
Chement |
US |
Room temperature cement production |
EcoAdmix Global |
UK |
Nanotechnology ('HDT') for concrete |
EcoLocked |
Germany |
Biocarbon-based admixtures |
EnviCore |
Canada |
Low temperature supplementary cementitious material production |
Enzymatic |
US |
Carbon negative enzymatic concrete corrosion inhibition and recycling |
Louis Structures |
US |
Municipal solid waste-based lightweight aggregates |
MEP - SeaMix |
US |
Basalt fibre and graphene-based admixture |
Nano Crete |
US |
Graphene-enhanced CO2 sequestration |
Nanospan India |
India |
Graphene-based admixture |
NeoCrete |
New Zealand |
Nano-activator for natural pozzolans |
Queens Carbon |
US |
~500°C cementitious materials production |
The Cool Corporation |
UK |
Carbon negative carbon nanotube-based additive for concrete |
Ultra High Materials |
US |
Clinkerless cement |
Versarien Graphene |
UK |
Graphene-based admixture ('Cementene') |
GCCA cement director and innovation lead Claude Loréa said “We received more than 70 quality applications, so drawing up a shortlist was challenging." Loréa continued "Our essential industry needs something easily scalable and affordable. Those start-ups on the list demonstrated the most potential, and we look forward to hearing more about their ideas. But we’ll also be keeping in touch with other start-ups who didn’t make this year’s shortlist, with future projects in mind.”
UK: Material Evolution raised US$19m in a Series A funding round to scale production of its 85% reduced-CO2 cement. Material Evolution produces cement at ambient temperature using its own ambient fusion process. Its inputs consist of industrial wastes and feedstocks. Tech Crunch News has reported that venture capital firm Kompas VC led the funding, with participation from fellow venture capital firms Norrsken VC and Circle Rock Capital, as well as quarried materials producer SigmaRoc.
Material Evolution's CEO Elizabeth Gilligan said “Fusion technology has been hailed as the way to meet humanity’s energy needs for millions of years, whilst emitting no CO2 or other greenhouse gases."
India: Ramco Cements has commissioned a 3000t/day integrated cement line at its Ramamasamy Raja Nagar cement plant in Tamil Nadu. Projects Today News has reported that the plant runs on renewable energy from a captive wind farm, and recycles 90% of water used in production.
Ramco Cements produces Ramco 53 Infra Super cement at the Ramamasamy Raja Nagar plant. The product allows for lower cement and admixture content to be used in the production of concrete structures.
India: Ambuja Cements and its subsidiary ACC have transitioned to reporting their results in line with the (April - March) Indian financial year. As such, they have published 15-month results for 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. During the period, Ambuja Cements reported sales of US$4.75bn, up by 34% year-on-year from US$3.53bn. Its cement volumes rose by 28% to 68Mt, while its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 11% to US$714m. Meanwhile, ACC recorded sales of US$2.71bn, up by 38% from US$1.97bn in 2021. Its cement volumes rose by 31% to 37.9Mt, while its EBITDA fell by 30% to US$275m.
ACC announced its goal to become India's 'most profitable cement company.' To realise this, the company will implement a three-pronged strategy of capacity expansion, efficiency improvements and development of its distributor and dealer network. Under the capacity expansion heading, the producer will double its production capacity through the construction of new cement plants and the expansion of existing ones. In this, it will lay special emphasis on securing supplies of renewable energy and supplementary cementitious materials, including fly ash from its own power plant segment. The company noted that it recently secured access to 1Bnt-worth of new limestone reserves in Maharashtra, Odisha, Karnataka and Rajasthan. It will also seek to increase its coal production to avoid the rising cost of imports.
In the 2024 financial year, the government of India plans to invest US$11.4bn in the construction of new housing, roads and sanitation infrastructure nationally. Ambuja Cements has forecast an increase in domestic cement consumption of 6 - 8% to over 390Mt/yr. It expects Indian cement production to rise by 8 - 10% year-on-year to 390Mt in the 2024 financial year.
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.
Titan Group commissions upgraded Kamari cement plant
27 June 2023Greece: Titan Group has successfully commissioned an upgrade to the pre-calciner system of its Kamari cement plant in Voiotia. Titan Group says that this will enable the 3.1Mt/yr plant to expand its range of lower carbon cements, reducing its CO2 emissions by 150,000t/yr. It also increases the plant's maximum possible alternative fuels (AF) substitution rate.
Titan Group’s Europe regional executive director Yanni Paniaras said "The completion of the Kamari plant upgrade represents a significant achievement for Titan Group. We are witnessing tangible results as our green innovation gains momentum and takes shape. This successful implementation of one of our major capital expenditure projects exemplifies our dedication to sustainable operations and strategic growth, while we continue to pursue more growth opportunities in all our active markets. We are committed to offering our customers and communities greener products and solutions, playing our part in building a sustainable future for all.”
Spain: Cemex España has secured Euro4.4m in EU funding for an upgrade to its Alicante cement plant in Valencia. The project will launch the use of Clyngas synthetic gas as alternative fuel (AF) at the plant. Thermochemical conversion specialist WtEnergy, a subsidiary of Cemex Ventures, will supply the syngas. The partners say that this upgrade will reduce CO2 emissions by 400,000t per decade.
Parent company Cemex said "This project is part of Cemex’s Future in Action programme, which seeks to achieve sustainable excellence through climate action, circularity and natural resource management, with the primary objective of becoming a net-zero CO2 company."