Queens Carbon is engaged in developing and scaling a range of low-temperature alternative cements and supplementary cementitious materials. It recently closed a US$10m seed funding round, led by Clean Energy Ventures, for an upcoming 2000t/yr pilot facility at Buzzi Unicem USA’s Stockertown cement plant in Pennsylvania.
Global Cement (GC): Congratulations on Queens Carbon’s recent seed funding success. Please would you introduce your production process?
Daniel Kopp (DK): Our upcoming pilot in Stockertown, Pennsylvania, will demonstrate what we call the ‘instant pot’ of cement manufacturing. We add the ingredients – limestone, clay, sand and shale, just like other cements. Then we add a small amount of water. Steam and pressure from this water allow us to reduce the temperature of production by more than half compared to ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Nearly all of the CO2 emissions from the calcination of limestone are locked inside the chemical structure of the SCM. The chemical reaction requires indirect heat. This allows us to innovate with the reactor design in order to enable various heat sources, including alternative fuels, waste heat from a cement plant or electricity.
GC: What will the pilot plant use as a heat source?
Dave Gersholowitz (DG): The Stockertown pilot plant will be electrically heated. As we scale, electrification will be site-dependent, according to grid availability and producers’ site plans. In the US, electricity remains 5 – 10 times the price of other heat sources, so we need to remain ‘agnostic’ in order to be economically viable. If a producer wants to continue to use traditional fuels, they can. That will increase the carbon footprint compared to electrification – but at least that footprint is pointing meaningfully in the right direction!
GC: What raw materials do you use?
DG: The system is designed to use the same raw materials as conventional cement plants, which are built on reserves of these. We will be able to take the materials straight off plants’ vertical roller mills.
Operators can begin by running our system in parallel with existing kilns, and increase their use from 10% to 20%, up to 50%, blending the streams together at the end of the process. As such, we needed a process and system capable of scaling up to a comparable capacity of 5000 – 10,000t/day.
As construction and demolition materials become increasingly important and available, our system offers the ability to process that. It may even ‘prefer’ it.
GC: How will you market your product?
DK: We are working on two different products. The product we are going to pilot first is our supplementary cementitious material (SCM), called Q-SCM. It is a synthetic pozzolan made of a mixture of limestone, sand and clay. A cement plant producing this can decide to co-sell it in a blended cement or as a separate product. We are looking at around 50% eventual substitution of cement with Q-SCM.
Our second product will be a hydraulic cement, called Q-Cement. The production process for Q-Cement shares the same core principles and equipment as Q-SCM production and is currently undergoing further development. Uniquely, it co-produces a pure stream of CO₂ without requiring additional purification, avoiding the costly and complex chemistry of traditional carbon capture.
We plan to launch our >1000t/day full-scale plant in 2029. The facility will be equipped to produce both Q-SCM and Q-Cement using the same core hardware platform.
GC: How much cement can you displace?
DK: Ultimately, we aim for 100% substitution with our products. Today, there is strong demand for high-quality SCMs – a trend that will only intensify as traditional sources become increasingly scarce. Our Q-SCM offers a low barrier to entry, and the producers who adopt and scale it today are well-positioned to lead the next phase: Q-Cement.
We believe that we can achieve our 100% substitution goal thanks to the scalability and industry compatibility of our process, as well as the established availability and logistics surrounding our feedstock.
GC: How are you financing current and future growth?
DG: To date, we have been fortunate enough to obtain some non-dilutive capital, both in our initial funding from Breakthrough Energy Fellows and a US$15m Department of Energy ARPA-E SCALEUP grant. That, combined with the venture capital funding, covers our pilot plant.
Our goal is to deploy the full ‘capital stack,’ including some debt, in getting to full-scale. This full-scale plant will have a pathway to profitability. We know that we can be competitive with industry prices, both for SCMs and cement, with or without carbon credits. Getting the techno-economic analysis from the pilot plant will allow us to start unlocking full-scale plant financing and customer orders.
GC: What are your main obstacles?
DG: The funding environment is challenging, with on-going changes in the economic and regulatory situation. Getting up to a multiple of what we previously raised will involve getting all those pieces of the capital stack on the board.
Fortunately, the cement industry is interested in innovation. Our partners in the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and American Cement Association (ACA) are giving us every reason to feel confident.
GC: What customers are you targeting?
DG: Our model is to work with large cement producers. They already have a huge customer base. We have also had conversations with other players down the value chain, including in the data centre segment and others in the construction space.
We are already speaking to companies in growth areas: South America, Middle East, Asia. These growth areas are also some of the most cost-sensitive areas, hence why the process had to be
cost-compelling.
GC: What will be the business model going forward?
DG: Initially, we considered doing everything ourselves, from building the plants to producing and selling the materials. On the other end of the spectrum, we looked at fully licensing the technology to equipment manufacturers or other players. In the end, we chose a middle path: manufacturing and selling our equipment directly to cement producers.
This model is flexible – it doesn’t rely on a single structure. In some cases, it may be a direct sale; in others, it might involve leasing or offering the system as a service. We’ll also work with financial partners to reduce up-front costs and lower adoption barriers in a way that works best for the customer.
Our initial revenue will come from equipment sales, with ongoing revenue tied to service, software controls and optimisation support. As customers upgrade from SCM to cement production, we’ll be there to help fine-tune performance, providing a complete, chemistry-driven product suite that adapts to their evolving needs.
GC: What impact would you like to make by 2050?
DK: Our technology playbook was designed with scale in mind, working with existing quarries and supply chains to create carbon-neutral products with compelling performance and economics (without subsidies). The validation we and our partners are seeking will come from our pilot demonstrating this, across several campaigns averaging 10t/day.
Achieving this will enable rapid scale-up to our aggressive target of 25% of plants globally, which would mean 3Gt of CO2 mitigated over 25 years.
Cement production is going high-tech. We are showing that that doesn’t have to mean high-cost.
GC: Thank you both for your time today!
About Daniel Kopp and Dave Gersholowitz
Daniel Kopp is CEO and Chief Technical Officer of Queens Carbon, which he co-founded with Dave Gersholowitz and Professor Richard Riman in 2022, while working as a research associate at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US. Kopp holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the university, and became a Breakthrough Energy Innovator Fellow in September 2022.
Dave Gersholowitz is Chief Business Officer and co-founder of Queens Carbon. He is also founding Managing Director of venture capital firm CapeSilver Partners and has previously founded and held senior roles at other high-tech companies in the veterinary medicine sector. Gersholowitz holds a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) from UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles and an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
