3rd Global CemCCUS Conference

The 2nd Global CemCCUS Conference on carbon capture in the cement industry has successfully taken place in Vienna, 14 - 15 May 2025, with 135 delegates from 29 countries, 21 presentations, five Global CemCCUS awards, a short course, and a field trip to Holcim’s Mannersdorf cement plant. The conference will next take place in Hamburg in June 2026.

View CemCCUS Conference 2025 photo gallery

Short Course

Prior to the conference, John Kline of Kline Consulting gave an intensive 'introduction to carbon capture in the cement and lime industries' full-day course, which brought a disparate assembly of attendees (from experts to novices) up to the 'state-of-the-art.' Conference delegates then had a chance to meet each other in a low-key convivial 'Welcome Reception' in the conference's exhibition area.

Conference First Day

Claudia Dankle, representing the VÖZ, the Austrian Cement Industry Association, presented the first paper at the conference, outlining the Austrian cement industry’s 10 cement plants, eight of them integrated. The country’s clinker factor is now lower than 70%, while the average thermal substitution rate of alternative fuels (AF) is a world-record 84.7%. High levels of alternative raw materials (ARMs) are also used. On average, Austrian companies produce 530kg CO2 per tonne of cement produced. Currently, subsurface storage of CO2 is forbidden in Austria, with intense discussion still ongoing. A CO2 transport network would also need to be established, not just for the cement industry, but also for lime, power plants and incinerators. At the same time, a huge amount of new electrical generation and distribution would need to be built, for carbon capture.

Haimo Primas, CEO of Holcim Austria, next introduced the company, which operates the Mannersdorf (85% AF TSR) and Retznei (99% AF TSR) cement plants. Haimo suggested that the plants have a CO2 emission of 433kg CO2/t net cementitious, with a clinker factor of 66% in 2023, but aiming for 60% by 2030. The two plants used 340,000t of construction and demolition materials in 2024. The new CemProTec cooler at Mannersdorf has reduced CO2 emissions by 18kt/year, while a new VRM reduced emissions by 40kt/year by reducing the clinker factor through separate grinding of soft limestone and harder clinker. The company’s Cem II/C has a clinker factor of 50%, with significant use of fillers and recycled concrete fines. Holcim worldwide aims to have a production capacity of 8Mt of net zero cement by 2030, with the C2PAT+ project at Mannersdorf potentially playing a significant part.

Thomas Czigler of McKinsey & Company then spoke about value creation opportunities in decarbonisation and carbon capture. He first suggested that the EU ETS price will be €160/t in 2035, with prices driven by the phase-out of free allocations. Demand for reduced-carbon cement is rapidly mounting (faster than the supply) and Thomas suggested that a premium may be payable for such low-CO2 cement. He calculated that around 100Mt/year of carbon capture will be needed in the European cement industry by 2050. There are significant economies of scale when building carbon capture plants, which suggests a trend towards fewer larger cement plants, while carbon capture plants may be cheaper to build once they are ‘off the peg’ rather than being ‘hand-built by PhDs.’ The use of industrial clusters and hubs for CO2 collection and sequestration will reduce costs and spread risk.

Adi Akheramka of IPA Global next gave delegates an idea of performance norms for carbon capture projects. Adi stated that “Many opportunities today are uneconomic without incentives and subsidies, as customers are unwilling to pay a price premium for low-carbon products,” somewhat contradicting the previous speaker. Despite this, there will be a rapid increase in operating carbon capture projects in all industries around the world within the next five years. On the other hand, around 40% of CCUS projects previously mooted are either on hold or cancelled outright, partly because the costs at the FID (final investment decision) point are typically twice what has been estimated at the FEED (front-end engineering/design) point. CO2 concentration in exhaust gases significantly drives capture cost, and Adi also emphasised the economies of scale available on larger carbon capture projects, particularly in the size of compressors. He suggested that compression accounts for around 28% of the total cost of a CCUS project.

David Jayant, now working for Ramboll, and his co-author Christian Riber,  spoke about managing project risks while executing CCUS projects. He encapsulated the problem of CCUS by stating that the cement industry uses cheap raw materials to create a valuable product, while carbon capture uses an expensive process to produce a low-value CO2 by-product. David suggested that the production process must first be optimised to enhance the CO2 content of the flue gas, since a rule-of-thumb suggests that each 1% of increase will finally result in a 2% reduction in the specific energy demand of the carbon capture unit (CCU). Sizing the CCU correctly is essential, and can be based on historical and future expected operational data. The technology for capture must be chosen, and is informed by the gas conditioning that will be required, while also taking into account the energy requirements of the process. Christian then pointed out some of the environmental constraints in CCUS projects, such as carbon capture fluid emissions, waste water treatment and discharge, CO2 leaks, and noise. Procurement models must be optimised to reduce and contain project costs, while project risks must also be analysed thoroughly.

Joe Harder of OneStone Consulting, Varna, next asked which technologies will dominate carbon capture for the cement industry by 2035. He pointed out that the cement industry is very far from hitting its own targets for carbon capture in 2050. At the same time, carbon emissions from the cement industry have doubled between 2001 and 2023, to over 2.4Bnt/year. Global decarbonisation will not depend much on the actions of Europe and North America, but rather will depend on developments in Asia, India and Africa. Joe projected CO2 emissions costs of more than €500/t by 2040 in Europe, and suggested that the cost of the CCU projects will be the main factor in the successful roll-out of carbon capture for the cement industry, rather than any technological developments. The Mission Possible Partnership has estimated that the global cement industry will need to invest US$50bn in carbon capture each year between 2022 and 2050 to hit its net zero targets. Joe concluded, “That will not happen.”

Martin Weng, founder of aixprocess GmbH, spoke about process optimisation as an important first step for CCUS operation. Martin showed data from a well-run cement in Switzerland (Holcim’s Siggenthal plant) that showed wide variations in process temperature and gas volumes. Such variations would be very difficult to deal with if intending to capture carbon, while CCU equipment must be sized on the maximum values expected and thus might have to be expensively over-sized. Meanwhile, stoppages of the kiln would be potentially problematic (and expensive) for the CCU. Meal spillages, calciner fuel spillages, and AF and raw material variations can all cause process upsets. Martin suggested that a digital twin model of the process, such as the KILN AIxperT, incorporating real-time CFD, can help to avoid problems and can help to stabilise the process. Such a digital twin employed at Siggenthal decreased the specific energy consumption and decreased the standard deviation of free lime in the clinker.

Simon Knitter of IKN then spoke about the central role of the cooler in the optimisation of oxyfuel operation. When a two-stage cooler is used, with gas separation in the cooler, the closed-loop oxygen-based preheater circuit and the air-based clinker circuit can be operated separately. A transition chute and (high temperature) clinker crusher is therefore included in the middle of the cooler, effecting gas separation, while gas-tightness throughout the cooler must be ensured (a non-trivial problem). Due to the higher heat capacity of CO2, such clinker coolers are more efficient compared with operation with air.

Eike Willms, thyssenkrupp Polysius, introduced the benefits of his company’s pure oxyfuel technology for CCS. Producing cement in an oxygen-rich environment would generate flue gases with a far greater concentration of CO2. The company has conceptualised both new build and retrofit oxyfuel solutions, with CO2 concentrations of up to 99% possible. This enables far easier and less energetically-demanding cryogenic condensation and / or amine scrubbers. Newly-designed - and highly gas-tight – preheaters are used in the case of greenfield investments. In the case of retrofits, an additional preheater is installed to operate using pure oxygen, calcining as much of the raw meal as possible. Willms said that thyssenkrupp Polysius anticipates that its pure oxyfuel solution will achieve a technical readiness level (TRL) of nine by 2030. The first retrofit pure oxyfuel solution is currently being installed at Titan Cement’s Kamari plant in Greece. “If you can store the CO2, we’ll be ready to go” he concluded.

Jean-Michel Charmet, Fives FCB, described a hypothetical ‘best in class’ cement plant with all of with Fives’ latest technology, including an FCB Horomill, clay calcination, a high proportion of biomass fuels, a clinker factor of 50% and concrete recycling. This would emit just 353kg/t of cement, compared to typically 688kg/t in Europe. Fives proposed options for oxyfuel include retrofits to existing plant, with the possibility to switch between oxyfuel mode and air mode. A hypothetical 5000t/day CO2 capture case-study compared two a partial oxyfuel solution with 41% CO2 in the flue gas and a full oxyfuel solution with 82% CO2. The full oxyfuel solution has both lower capital and operating costs. When asked why users might opt for a partial oxyfuel solution, Charmet said that space required for full oxyfuel is larger and may not be possible when space is at a premium.

Anders Petersen, Project Manager for the Brevik CCS Project for Heidelberg Materials Northern Europe, then gave an extremely detailed presentation on the lessons learned from the project so far. The project, carried out by SLB Capturi, has now commenced operation. It will capture 0.4Mt/yr of CO2, around 50% of the plant’s total emissions – due to limited waste heat available at the plant. It will then be transported via ships to permanent storage locations under the North Sea seabed.  Petersen’s wide-ranging presentation focussed on very practical aspects, including the importance of maintaining a constant -40°C dewpoint on the plant’s compressed air. Some fluctuation does not normally affect cement plant operation, but this parameter was crucial to the supplier of CO2 condensers. Elsewhere, Petersen highlighted the fact that dealing with new suppliers – often from the oil and gas sector – had led to over-specified components, which are estimated to have cost 20-30% of the project cost. In another case of mis-specification, Petersen relayed how a gasket failure caused a high-pressure chamber to drop from 35bar to 12bar in three minutes. It was later found 50m away, indicating a health-and-safety near miss. There were also multiple manufacturing faults in the demineralised water plant, which had been overlooked compared to other parts of the project. Thankfully, the catch and release system works very well and had captured its first 1000t of CO2 a few days before the conference.

2nd Global CemCCUS Awards Dinner

After the end of the first day’s conference programme, delegates enjoyed the CemCCUS awards dinner cruise along the Danube on the MV Vienna. Following online nominations and a global online voting round, the winners of the Global CemCCUS wards were announced. Heidelberg Materials was named as carbon capture company of the year, with Ardent as technology supplier of the year. RHI Magnesita won for technical innovation of the year (see below), while Holcim’s Go4Zero carbon capture project in Belgium was named CCUS project of the year. John Kline of Kline Consulting was named Global CemCCUS ‘personality of the year.’

Second day

Antti Heikkilä, Vaisala Oyj argued that the role of measuring CO2 in cement sector carbon capture lies in performance. For point-source capture methods measurements showing the flue gas in, the lean flue gas and the captured CO2 should all be considered. As well as showing the basic capture rate these readings also indicate how well the capture method is working. Heikkilä pointed out some specific cement plant considerations including: the advantage of higher CO2 levels in the stack; the presence of particulate matter and acid gases; and the option to use process heat. In terms of measurement he noted that inlet CO2 concentration is higher than other sectors and that the risk of SOx entering the scrubber, particularly in amine-based systems. For actual probe placement he recommended that installers find sites with homogenous gas flow, measure pressure and temperature, and be aware of the 1/3 – 1/2 and 5 – 2 diameter rules.

Nic Renard, Ardent explained that his company started targeting the carbon capture sector over the last five years. He noted that its patented membrane product’s chemistry and design does not require as high pressure as previous membranes. The company intends to start commercial demonstration projects from 2027 and full scale from 2028. Of note to the cement sector, Ardent has been running a pilot at a RHI Magnesita refractory plant in Austria and has recorded over 700 hours of operational data. Ardent presented a cost study suggesting that its product has lower capital costs compared to other amine-based approaches for the overall cost of CO2 capture.

Justin Hearn, Svante described the benefits of his company’s capture technique: an adsorption approach using metal organic frameworks (MOF). He noted that Svante’s carbon capture process works best at CO2 concentrations above 12% and that emissions from the cement sector was generally at or above this level. The advantages that Hearn promoted included that MOFs are resistant to SOx, NOx, O2 & H2O in flue gas and that 95% of the CO2 in the flue gas can be captured. No further treatment pre-treatment is required for a Svante Carbon Capture Unit. Currently the company produces two commercial units. The Ursa 1000 captures around 182,500t/yr and the Ursa 2000 around 730,000t/yr. Svante has been operating a 365t/yr demonstration unit at the Lafarge Richmond cement plant in Canada since 2019. The company is preparing to deploy a mobile test unit at a cement plant in the European Union in the second quarter of 2025. Finally, Hearn noted the lower total energy requirements of Svante’s design compared to other ‘end of pipe’ methods.

Thomas Lamare of Chovet next spoke on the importance of water treatment when capturing carbon in the cement industry. He pointed out that, depending on the carbon capture technology used, a CCU might require up to 25m3/hr, equivalent to the cement plant’s previous use, while captured and compressed CO2 will inevitably produce contaminated condensates from flue gas humidity, perhaps equal to a tanker truck-load each hour. Thomas ran through the different stages of water treatment, outlining mechanical-biological treatment, microfiltration, reverse osmosis, ozone and UV treatment, and evapo-concentration. He gave capex figures for biological aid for physico-chemical water-treatment plants for a cement industry carbon capture project (of unspecified size), of €18-23m, and for opex of €2.5-3.1m/year for a European project.

Jan Bangert of Linde Engineering, a company active in the capture, conditioning, purification and liquefaction sectors - and owner of several hundred kilometres of CO2 pipelines in the US, spoke about amine capture, the HISORP PSA-based cryogenic approach, and oxyfuel solutions. Jan outlined the Build-Own-Operate (BOO), Joint Venture, and Sale of Plant business models, as well as ‘carbon capture as a service’ where Linde takes the flue gas and takes care of everything else. Jan mentioned that Linde is involved in the Heidelberg Materials Lengfurt project, capturing 220t/day, and the Lägerdorf, Mergelstetten and Rudersdorf carbon capture projects.

Andreas Drescher of well-known refractory producer RHI Magnesita then spoke on a carbon capture process based on mineralisation. In fact, refractory manufacture is a ‘hard-to-abate’ carbon-producing industry, and RHI Magnesita produces around 5Mt/year of CO2 itself since CO2 is burnt out of magnesite and dolomite, which are the raw materials for refractories. The company is now looking towards its next steps for decarbonisation, through carbon capture first and then mineralisation (the favoured option due to its business and locations). Andreas explained that a serpentinite rock is finely ground and put into a liquid phase in a reactor, from MCi Carbon, into which CO2 is introduced. Two mineralised produced are produced - a siliceous product (which can be used as a supplementary cementitious material) and a precipitated magnesium carbonate product (which has many possible commercial uses). RHI Magnesita expects to open a commercial pilot plant at its Hochfilzen plant in Austria in 2028, capturing 50-100kt CO2/year (with a capex of around €150m).

Svenja Vogt of the THM University of Applied Sciences, Germany, next spoke on the accelerated carbonation of fresh concrete slurry waste (CSW), which is the subject of her PhD. Around 4% of concrete produced ends up as a slurry waste, which is currently almost entirely landfilled. Svenja created a three stage (hydration, carbonation and aeration) gas-tight batch-reactor to sequester CO2 into CSW, through the conversion of portlandite into calcium carbonate, with CO2 uptake of around 16wt%. Next steps might include scale-up and commercialisation.

Ismael Justo-Reinoso of Wood Mackenzie then spoke about the use of carbonate-precipitating bacteria and microalgae to capture CO2. It has been found that bacteria can fix CO2 into inert steel slags (ISS), while residual microbes form nucleation sites, improving hydration rates when bio-CaCO3 was used as an SCM in cement. Ismael suggested that bacterial systems in deep aquifers might be used to reduce the possibility of leakage of sequestered CO2 through biomineralisation. Many microalgae-related research projects have been established over the years, around the world, with varying degrees of success. The approaches may have applications, if they can escape from the laboratory and pilot-scale tests.
Arnaud Paulik of Revcoo spoke about a cryogenic capture process (‘CarbonCloud’) which uses direct contact of the flue gas with a refrigerant in a vortex cyclone to reverse-sublimate CO2 into first a solid and then a liquid CO2. He suggested that within the next three years that his company’s solution will be scaled up to around 10,000t/year. An industrial pilot plant has already been built in partnership with Eiffage on a twin-shaft regenerative lime kiln, producing 1000t/year of liquid CO2, with 95% recovery at >99% purity.

Monaca McNall of W.LGore & Associates was the final presenter at the conference, and spoke on structured particle composite sorbent materials for cement industry carbon capture. The materials are like super-fine porous 3D spider webs which are then loaded with active powders, such as sorbets, catalysts or MOFs (metal-organic frameworks). They can be made into corrugated modules, felt membranes and structured frameworks. The company supplies de-NOx catalytic filter bags, which are formed of PTFE membrane on the outside for particulate filtration, and the catalyst-filled composite felt on the inside of the bag for SCR reactions. Similar products can be used to deal with SO2 and mercury, as well as for H2O removal from large volumes of gas at low pressure drop. Carbon capture solutions, beyond gas cleaning, may be on the horizon for some of these materials.

After the conference, many delegates participated in a field trip to Holcim’s Mannersdorf cement plant, which is destined to be the site of a major CCUS plant in the coming years.

Farewell and conclusions

Delegates voted for their favourite presentations from the conference. In third place was Thomas Lamare of Chovet for his presentation on wastewater treatment; in second place was Justin Hearn of Svante for his paper on the use of solid sorbentsn but in first place (again, after his win in 2024) was Anders Petersen from Heidelberg Materials for his ‘lessons learned’ paper on the newly-commissioned CCU at Brevik, Norway.

Delegates strongly praised the event for its smooth organisation, for its friendly atmosphere and high level of technical content and for the excellent networking and business opportunities at the conference.

The 3rd Global CemCCUS Conference and Exhibition on carbon capture in the cement industry will take place on 9 - 10 June 2026 in Hamburg, Germany, with a confirmed field trip to Holcim’s Lägerdorf plant on 11 June 2026.

See you there!

 Delegate comments on 2nd Global CemCCUS Conference 2025

• Can’t wait for 3rd CCUS
• Very interesting despite being 2nd time - Thanks!
• Excellent information flow conducted very professionally
• We learned a lot. Thank you !
• Great conference, as always!
• Dynamic-focus-open minded-sharing
• Thank you for this nice conference
• Very nicely organised and arranged.
• First time attending this event and would definitely come again! Great diversity of speakers and attendees, open and collaborative sessions, and well designed agenda.
• It was great, again!
• Wonderful conference. Well moderated, discussing the right questions.
• Very professional conference, will be back!
• Excellent time keeping, leaving enough time for networking and individual talks
• Thank you for compiling the extensive focal points and presentations and thank you for the professional organisation of the conference
• Implementing speed dating, meet the delegate and the discussion session was great.
• Good organization. Excellent moderation. Nice location. Really good networking.
• Always good
• Very useful and fruitful conference. Definitely a must-go every year.
• Cutting-edge technology backed by comprehensive research.
• My first conference. Great organisation and content. Thank you
• I truly enjoyed the conference. It was well-organized, insightful. Thank you for the opportunity to participate and for all the hard work that made it such a valuable experience.
• Very nice conference with a strong focus on technology.
• Excellent networking, excellent overview
• Good organization, thanks
• Very helpful
• Very effective in providing an accurate update on the latest industrial applications and technological advances related to CCUS.
• Very well organised and excellent moderation!
• Can't wait for the next one!
• Well organized and insightful.
• Very good again. Continue like this!
• Amazingly structured and very informative
• Thank you very much for hosting the great one!
• Best conference I‘ve ever been to
• Excellent conference, great participants
• Very nice
• Excellent event, looking forward to Hamburg next year!
• Very well organized and very good networking
• Fantastic conference - shows our industry is in motion.
• Professional and friendly
• You are doing a great job!
• Organization at highest level, great thanks!
• Very well organized.
• We thank you for your efforts and would like to see almost the same performance in the next conference.
• I learned a lot and made really interesting and positive contacts! I'll be here next year for sure!
• Awesome! Best networking opportunity.

Below: Holcim's Mannersdorf cement plant - location of the CemCCUS field trip 2025

Below: 'Ladies of Carbon Capture' at the 2nd Global CemCCUS Conference in Vienna on 14-15 May 2025: