Displaying items by tag: Slag

US: Charah Solutions has signed a contract with Associated Electric Cooperative (AECI) to receive bottom ash, fly ash and boiler slag from its Thomas Hill Energy Center coal-fired power plant in Missouri until 2026. Charah Solutions will recycle the by-products to produce supplementary cementitious products and redistribute these through its MultiSource materials network. The network consists of 40 locations across the US.

President and CEO Scott Sewell said "We are delighted to partner with AECI to manage their ash marketing needs at Thomas Hill while supplying our concrete producers with the high-quality material they need."

Australia: Boral plans to run a pilot scale carbon capture and storage unit at its integrated Berrima Cement plant in New South Wales. The project follows an allocation of a US$1.7m grant from the Australian Government’s carbon capture and utilisation and storage (CCUS) Development Fund in June 2021. The pilot intends to develop and test a re-carbonation strategy for CO₂ storage. Captured CO₂ will be stored in recycled concrete, masonry and steel slag aggregates. In its 2021 sustainability report, the buildings materials company said that, “The relatively low capital and operation costs, abundance of selected waste materials and the financial return potential due to the increased value of processed aggregates are key drivers for adoption of this technology.”

Finland: Betolar has launched Geoprime, an alkali-activated additive for slag and fly ash used in concrete production. The company says that the product will enable concrete production from raw materials with 80% lower CO₂ than ordinary Portland cement (OPC).It aims to meet the growing demand for sustainable and cost-effective construction materials. Geoprime enjoys fast global scaling potential thanks to Betolar’s intellectual property licensing business model, which enables the use of existing production facilities, according to the company.

Chief executive officer Matti Löppönen said “We have seen a massive shift in the concrete manufacturing and construction industries driven by investor pressure for environmental, social and governance data transparency and Net Zero commitments, and now people are keen to hear what we have to offer.”

India: Gallantt Industry has ordered a Ready2Grind compact grinding plant from Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer for its Gorakhpur cement plant in Uttar Pradesh. The supplier says that the 65t/hr-capacity plant will grind cement to a Blaine fineness of 3750cm²/g. The planned MVR 2500 C-4 represents the medium size of the portfolio of the supplier’s modular mill range. Due to the planned installation in the vicinity of a steelworks, blast furnace slag, steelworks slag from an induction furnace and fly ash from an in-house power plant will also be considered as supplementary cementitious materials addition to clinker and gypsum. The mill will be equipped with a 1270kW main drive and an integrated SLS 2650 VC high-performance classifier.

UK: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Hanson has installed a solar and wind-powered hydrogen generation demonstration unit at its Port Talbot Regen ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) plant in Port Talbot in Neath Port Talbot. The company says that the project is part of a collaboration with Swansea University’s Energy Safety Research Institute under the European Research and Development Fund’s Reducing Industrial Carbon Emissions initiative. The hydrogen generated by the installation will replace natural gas in the GGBFS plant’s burners.

Head of sustainability Marian Garfield said, “It is estimated that cement is the source of just under 2% of UK CO₂ emissions. With demand for cement and cement replacement products predicted to increase by 25% by 2030, researchers and industry are working hard to reduce the level of CO₂ emissions associated with production. As a leading manufacturer, we take our responsibility very seriously. In the UK we have already achieved a 30% reduction in CO₂ emissions since 1990 across the business and have set an ambitious new target of a 50% reduction by 2030 from the same baseline. We are constantly looking to improve energy efficiency and carbon reduction at our cement and Regen GGBFS plants, so we are delighted to be involved with this innovative research project.”

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has begun construction of its second cement plant, called H2. The company will build the plant next to its existing H1 plant in Bournezeau, Vendée, using its clinker-free cement made from blast furnace slag, clay and gypsum. It will have a capacity of 250,000t/yr and cost Euro22m.

Co-founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann said “This second plant is a key milestone in our development plan in order to increase our production capacity. H2 will enable us to address the growing demand for our clinker-free low-carbon cement, as we have recently signed a number of partnerships with key construction players such as Groupe GCC, KP1, Capremib, Cemex and Eiffage Génie Civil. We would like to congratulate our teams, as this second plant is the result of a multitude of challenges taken up in 2020 in order to increase production capacity. It is the rare combination of an exceptional industrial performance and a minimised environmental impact. This structure demonstrates our industrial excellence and perfectly and genuinely materialises our intent to decarbonise the construction sector.”

Head of new construction Olivier Lefelle said “This second plant represents a major and structuring step. The choice of a vertical model for the mixing tower is an innovative concept in the construction sector and is perfectly in line with Hoffmann Green’s responsible vision. Furthermore, by using Hoffmann cement for its construction, this building site will enable CO₂ emissions to be reduced by around 20,000t.”

Australia: Adbri subsidiary Cockburn Cement has approved a US$152m upgrade to its Kwinana grinding plant in Western Australia. It says the investment will consolidate the cement operations at its Kwinana site. At present clinker is transported by truck from the Kwinana Bulk Terminal to cement mills at both the Kwinana grinding plant and the company’s integrated plant at Munster. It will increase its production capacity to 1.5Mt/yr from 1.1Mt/yr at present. The project is expected to save the company US$15m/yr due to better energy, transport and maintenance efficiency when the plant is commissioned by mid-2023. The producer will fund the investment through existing debt facilities.

The upgrade project includes: a bulk materials conveyor linking the Kwinana Bulk Terminal (KBT) facility to a new 110,000t clinker storage shed, incorporating an automated reclaim system, to eliminate road transport and minimise clinker handling using mobile equipment; a slag feed system that will handle granulated blast furnace slag and additives such as gypsum and limestone; a ball mill circuit with the installation of two new cement mills capable of grinding slag and clinker; and a new 21,000t finished product storage, truck loading and weighbridge infrastructure for storage and despatch.

Ireland: Ecocem Group has appointed John Reddy as Group Quality and Innovation Application Manager. In the new role he will lead a growing technical team across Europe including Ireland, UK, Sweden, Benelux and France. He is tasked with developing the product pipeline for the group and assisting with product commercialisation across Europe.

Conor O’Riain, Group Managing Director said, “His undeniable commitment to Ecocem and the cement industry is unquestionable and this new role signifies the growth of Ecocem products across Europe. His appointment marks his advocacy to improving the standard of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) cement production across the industry”.

Reddy joined Ecocem Ireland in 2004 and has worked for the group in various technical roles. He is a chartered engineer and is a graduate of Civil Engineering from the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and holds an MSc in Advanced Concrete Technology from Queens University, Belfast. His master’s thesis ‘Investigating the thermal activation of GGBS concrete’ was published at the 9th International Concrete Conference and subsequently won the Irish Concrete Society, Sean DeCourcy student award in 2017.

US: CRH subsidiary Ash Grove Cement says that it is undertaking an upgrade of its Port Manatee, Florida deep water cement terminal to install a high capacity FLSmidth Kovako unloader and modernise existing material transfer and electrical systems, as well as establishing self-loading capabilities. The aim of the upgrade is “to improve Ash Grove’s capacity to import cement clinker, slag and fly ash to meet the existing and future needs of customers in the Florida and South Georgia markets.

Regional president Monica Manolas said, “The underlying fundamentals in the Florida market are positive with good population and employment growth. The upgrade of the Port Manatee import terminal will expand our capabilities and strengthen our ability to meet growing demand in the region.”

The company says that construction will begin in early 2021 and the upgraded terminal will open in late 2021.

Bangladesh: Cement producers imported US$760,000-worth of raw materials in the 2020 financial year which ended on 30 June 2020, down by 13% year-on-year from US$874,000 in the 2019 financial year. Clinker, calcareous stone, granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) and gypsum imports totalled 18.6Mt, down by 11% from 21.0Mt, compared to annual growth of 15 - 20% since 2010.

The Daily Star newspaper has reported that this was due to decreased cement demand, with sales falling to 65,000t in April 2020 from 125,000t in March 2020 on account of the start of the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Premier Cement managing director Amirul Islam said, “We are not getting the benefits we expected from the government. The sector’s capital is gradually running out, so all kinds of discretionary tax cuts are needed to save this industry.”

Bangladeshi cement producers import raw materials from Thailand, Vietnam and China.