Displaying items by tag: Alliance for LowCarbon Cement & Concrete

One unusual thing about coverage of cement in the media is the way that discussions often centre precisely on its absence – that is, on alternatives to cement. These alternatives boast unique chemistries and performance characteristics, but are all produced without Portland cement clinker. They are generally called ‘alternative cements,’ perhaps because ‘cement-free cement’ does not have such a commercially viable ring to it. This contradictory tendency reached a new high in the past week, with developments in alternative cement across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Together, they hint at a more diverse future for the ‘cement’ industry than the one we know today.

Asia

In Indonesia, Suvo Strategic Minerals has concluded tests with Makassar State University of a novel nickel-slag-based cement. Huadi Nickel-Alloy Indonesia supplied raw materials, and tests showed a seven-day compressive strength of 37.5MPa. Suvo Strategic Minerals says that a partnership with Huadi Nickel-Alloy Indonesia for commercial production is a likely next step.

Europe

Cement producer Mannok and minerals company Boliden partnered with the South Eastern Applied Materials (SEAM) research centre in Ireland to launch a project to develop supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) from shale on 7 October 2024. The project will additionally investigate CO₂-curing of cement paste backfill for use in mines. Irish state-owned global commerce agency Enterprise Ireland has contributed €700,000 in funding.

UK-based SCM developer Karbonite expects to launch trial production of its olivine-based SCM with a concrete company in 2025. The start-up launched Karbonite Group Holding BV, with offices in the Netherlands, to facilitate this new phase. Karbonite’s SCM is activated at 750 – 850°C and sequesters CO₂ in the activation process, resulting in over 56% lower CO₂ emissions than ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Managing director Rajeev Sood told Global Cement that talks are already underway for subsequent expansions into the UAE and India.

Back in the UK, contractor John Sisk & Son has received €597,000 from national innovation agency Innovate UK. John Sisk & Son is testing fellow Ireland-based company Ecocem’s <25% clinker cement technology in concrete for use in its on-going construction of the Wembley Park mixed development in London.

At the same time, Innovate UK granted a further €3.23m to other companies for concrete decarbonisation. Recipients included a calcined clay being developed by Cemcor, an SCM being developed from electric arc furnace byproducts by Cocoon, a geopolymer cement technology being developed by EFC Green Concrete Technology UK and an initiative to develop alternative cement from recycled concrete fines at the Materials Processing Institute in Middlesbrough. Also included was the Skanska Costain Strabag joint venture, which is working on the London stretch of the upcoming HS2 railway. The joint venture, along with partners including cement producer Tarmac and construction chemicals company Sika UK, will test low-kaolinite London clay as a raw material with which to produce calcined clay as a cement substitute in concrete structures in HS2’s rail tunnels.

Middle East

Talks are underway between UK-based calcined clay producer Next Generation SCM and City Cement subsidiary Nizak Mining Company over the possible launch of a joint venture in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The joint venture would build a 350,000t/yr reduced-CO₂ concrete plant, which would use alternative cement based on Next Generation SCM’s calcined clay.

North America

Texas-based SCM developer Solidia Technologies recently patented its carbonatable calcium silicate-based alternative cement, which sequesters CO₂ as it cures.

Meanwhile, C-Crete Technologies made its first commercial pour of its granite-based cement-free concrete in New York, US. C-Crete Technologies says that the product offers cost and performance parity with conventional cement, with net zero CO₂ emissions. Its raw material is globally more abundant than the limestone used as a raw material for clinker. Other abundantly available feedstocks successfully deployed within C-Crete Technologies’ repertoire include basalt and zeolite.

Across New York State, in Binghamton, KLAW Industries has succeeded in replacing 20% of concrete’s cement content with its powdered glass-based SCM, Pantheon. KLAW Industries has delivered samples to local municipalities and the New York State Department of Transportation. Its success expands the discussion of possible circular cement ingredients from the industrial sphere into post-consumer resources.

In Calgary, Canada, a novel SCM has drawn attention from one of the major cement incumbents: Germany-based Heidelberg Materials. It invested in local construction and demolition materials (CDM)-based SCM developer EnviCore on 9 October 2024. The companies plan to build a pilot plant at an existing Heidelberg Materials CDM recycling centre.

Conclusion

Alternative cement developers are still finding the words to talk about their products. They may be more than ‘supplementary’ up to the point of entirely supplanting 100% of clinker. Product webpages offer ‘hydraulic binder,’ ‘pozzolan’ and even ‘cement.’ As alternative ‘cements’ are developed, they build on the work of pioneers like Joseph Aspdin and Louis Vicat. Start-ups and their backers are now reaching commercial offerings, on a similar-but-different footing to cement itself. None of these novel materials positions itself as the sole, last-minute ‘super sub’ in the construction sector’s confrontation with climate change. Rather, they are a package of solutions which can combine into a net zero-emissions heavy building materials offering, hopefully before 2050.

Related to this is the need for ‘technology neutral’ standards, as championed this week by the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement and Concrete (ALCCC), along with 23 other European industry associations, civil society organisations and think tanks. The term may sound new, but the concept is critical to the eventual uptake of alternative cements: standards, the ALCCC says, should be purely performance-based. They ought not attempt to define what technology, for example cement clinker, makes a suitable building material. According to the ALCCC, Europe’s building materials standards are not technology neutral, but instead ‘gatekeep’ market access, to the benefit of conventional cement and the exclusion of ‘proven and scalable low-carbon products.’

At the same time, cement itself is changing. Market research from USD Analytics showed an anticipated 5% composite annual growth rate in blended cement sales between 2024 and 2032, more than doubling throughout the period from US$253bn to US$369bn. If you can’t beat it, blend with it!

For a further discussion of alternative cement and binders in Europe, see Global Cement’s interview with ALCCC co-ordinator Joren Verschaeve in the forthcoming November issue of Global Cement Magazine on 17 October 2024.

The Indonesian government emphasised its intention this week to use ‘green’ cement in the construction of its new capital city Nusantara in Borneo. However, this begs the question: what exactly is ‘green’ cement?

In this case, Mohammad Zainal Fatah, the secretary general of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing, told state media that his department was “seeking to encourage the supply of domestic-industry-based material resources and construction equipment, which can support sustainable infrastructure development principles." The ministry is working with state-owned cement producers such as Semen Indonesia (SIG) to ensure the provision of sustainable cement and related products. SIG was selected as a supplier for the project in late 2022 and, as of February 2024, has reportedly provided 400,000t of cement from its plants at Balikpapan and Samarinda.

This is admirable stuff. However, the timing of the announcement is curious given that both the head and deputy head of the Nusantara Capital City Authority resigned this week forcing the government to reassure investors that the project was still on. Cue some swift discussion about ‘green’ cement! Previously it was hoped that the first phase of the US$34bn project could be inaugurated on the country’s independence day in August 2024 with civil servants scheduled to start relocating to the site in the autumn.

SIG sells a number of ‘green’ blended cement products and some of these have received Green Label Cement certification from the Green Product Council Indonesia. The group says that these products have contributed up to a 38% drop in CO₂ emissions compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). This compares to the group’s clinker factor reduction rate of 69% and its Scope 1 emissions intensity reduction of 17% to 585kg/CO₂/t of cement in 2023 compared to 2010 levels.

Along similar lines, the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCCC) in Belgium also announced this week that it had released a new policy roadmap aimed at achieving net zero emissions by 2040. Amongst its recommendations were a focus on the standards for cement and concrete to promote low-carbon products and encouragement to create lead markets to develop demand for them.

Crucially, the ALCCC uses low-carbon cement in place of ‘green’ cement and this makes its definition clearer. ‘Green’ cement is a marketing term intended to associate cement with environmentalism. Yet there is no accepted definition describing how these products are more sustainable than, say, OPC. For example, a so-called ‘green’ cement could use 100% clinker manufactured with no CO₂ emissions-abatement, but it might be sustainable in other ways such as saving water. For the purposes of this article we’ll assume that ‘green’ cement means a low-carbon one. To further add to the confusion, ‘green’ concrete can be made using OPC in various ways but that’s beyond the scope of this piece. Clearly the world could do with some universal definitions.

US-based research and consulting company Global Efficiency Intelligence came to the same conclusion when it published its ‘What are Green Cement and Concrete?’ report in December 2023. It decided that - despite there being plenty of standards, protocols, and initiatives - there is no general agreement on the definition of ‘green’ cement or concrete. Its emissions intensity for cement summary table can be viewed below. It demonstrates the massive range of emissions intensity between the various standards. It is worth noting here that the description the Indonesian government may have been using for ‘green’ cement could already meet SIG’s Scope 1 emissions intensity reduction for its cement in 2023 depending on the standard being used.

Table 1: Emissions intensity definition for cement as stated by standards, protocols, initiatives, and policies with stated numerical quantity targets. Source: Global Efficiency Intelligence.

Part of the problem here is that there is a language gap between the simple definition of a cement that is less CO₂ emissions-intensive than OPC and the technical definitions used in the specifications and standards. Simply describing a cement product as ‘green’ can potentially cover anything that is slightly better than OPC down to a bona-fide net-zero product. Added to this is pressure from the manufacturers of new and existing cement products that use less or no OPC for regulators to move to performance-based standards to replace existing prescriptive standards, because it makes it easier for their products to be used. For more on this issue see Global Cement Weekly #606. Cement associations such as Cembureau and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) have also called in their respective net zero roadmaps for changes to the standards system to promote low-carbon cement and concrete products.

The answer to what is ‘green’ cement is whatever the promoters want it to be. So, it might be helpful if the use of the word ‘green’ were banned in connection to any marketing activity related to cement products. Everyone could then adopt some kind of universal grading system using simpler language. One approach might be to copy the colour-coding scheme used by hydrogen to describe how it is made. One could use yellow for limestone blends, silver for slag, orange for clay, black for OPC made with carbon capture and so on… but not green! Another route might be to mandate the use of the carbon labels that some cement producers have used for at least a decade. Or something like the alphabet energy rating system used in the UK and EU for electrical appliances could be used. It’s too much to hope for a global system but simpler systems in the main markets would make it much easier to determine what exactly is ‘green’ cement.

Peter Edwards, Editor of Global Cement Magazine, discusses ‘sustainable’ cement in The Last Word in the June 2023 issue

Belgium: The Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCCC) has marked its first anniversary with a new policy roadmap aimed at achieving net zero emissions by 2040. Initiated in May 2023, the alliance brings together environmental NGOs and industry stakeholders to transform the cement and concrete sectors. The ALCCC has grown significantly, now comprising 25 members.

Senior programme manager Joren Verschaeve from ECOS, the coordinator of ALCCC, said "Our members show that the technologies needed to make low-carbon cement and concrete the norm already exist. This uniquely positions our Alliance to raise the alarm when policies and standards lead to unfair competition instead of a greener future – and the latter is perfectly achievable if policymakers implement our roadmap."

World: Nine new members have joined the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCCC), a global association of low-CO₂ cement and concrete developers, producers and users, since its launch in May 2023. The alliance has welcomed alternative cement and concrete companies Betolar, 3Béton, CarbonRE, Cemvision, the European Environmental Bureau, Greenmade, Materrup, Nomad and Sublime Systems.

Joren Verschaeve, Programme Manager at ALCCC founder Environmental Coalition on Standards, said “It is great to see that so many actors - particularly innovators from within the industry - are committed to speeding up the decarbonisation of cement and concrete through better standards and policies. We are eager to work with our members and other stakeholders to (finally) help put the right incentives in place for low-carbon cement and concrete solutions.”

Europe: Sustainability policy organisation ECOS says that the European Parliament must enact the recommended Sustainable Products Regulation. The parliament received the recommendation from its Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee (ENVI). ECOS says that the regulation would submit cement to the EU's Ecodesign environmental impact framework.

Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) programme manager Joren Verschaeve said “Members of the ENVI committee have voted to regulate one of the most polluting products on the market. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will provide the cement industry with a stable and predictable framework towards decarbonisation.”

ECOS founded the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCCC), an association of companies focused on alternative building materials production, in May 2023.

Heidelberg Materials North America held an official opening ceremony this week for its upgraded slag cement plant and terminal at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The US$24m project added a new roller press to the unit to increase its production capacity. In a statement Chris Ward, the president and chief executive officer of the company, said that it had made the investment to meet sustainability and resilient construction goals. Industrial Accessories Company (IAC) said in mid-2021 that it had been named as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for the project. It planned to install a hydraulic roller press supplied by FLSmidth. IAC also said it was providing instrumentation equipment, hoppers, bins, belt conveyors, bucket elevators and dust collectors amongst other kit and services.

Other recent US slag cement-related news stories have concerned terminals. In late August 2022 Royal White Cement said it had leased a site on the Houston Ship Channel in Houston, Texas to handle and store approximately 100,000t of multiple cementitous products such as slag, ordinary Portland cement and white Cement. In May 2022 Titan America announced plans to spend US$37m on an upgrade to its Norfolk terminal in Chesapeake, Virginia. The major improvement was to add a 70,000t storage dome, with enlarged truck and railway capacity, to allow the site to import and distribute raw materials such as fly ash, slag and aggregates. Completion on this one was scheduled for some point in 2023. Titan added that the project was similar to the addition of a 70,000t dome under construction at the time at Titan's import terminal in Tampa, Florida.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that domestic sales of iron and steel (ferrous) slags in the US amounted to 15Mt in 2022. Sales were around 20Mt in the 2000s but this fell to current levels in the 2010s as blast furnaces closed. In 2022 the USGS noted that, “domestic ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) remained in limited supply because granulation cooling was known to be available at only two active US blast furnaces while, elsewhere, only one domestic plant produced pelletised slag in limited supply.” It added that the grinding of granulated blast furnace slag was only being carried out domestically by cement companies. Imports of slag were 2Mt in 2022. This is a decline from a peak of 2.6Mt in 2018 but higher than the period 2000 – 2015. The price of slag, meanwhile, hit a high of US$53/t in 2022. This is the highest price recorded by the USGS since at least 2000. It is double that of 2017.

Charles Zeynel of ZAG International noted in the June 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine that cement producers in Florida, California, Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas are far from steel mills, so they import granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) and other secondary cementitious materials (SCM). This certainly fits with Heidelberg Materials’ plan to upgrade its slag cement plant and terminal at Cape Canaveral. Also on the US market, Zeynel added that due to rising global demand for SCMs more of the available share of GBFS was being purchased by ‘richer’ markets such as Europe, North America and Australia. He continued that GBFS and GGBFS producers had also started increasing the price of their wares internationally. This too is apparent in the prices published by the USGS.

One final story with links to slag to note this week concerns the launch of the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCC) in Europe. The group brings together companies producing products or services intended to decarbonise the cement and concrete sectors. Two of the members – Ecocem and Hoffman Green Cement Technologies – are Europe-based slag cement producers. Two other members – Fortera and TerraCO₂ – are companies based in North America that are marketing and selling low-carbon SCMs.

Various start-up companies have been emerging on a regular basis in both North America and Europe with the aim of decarbonising cement and concrete in various different ways. The formation of the ALCC can be seen as part of this trend as the more successful non-traditional cement-concrete-aggregate companies establish themselves. One point that cement producers in North America are likely to be well aware of is that concrete is becoming less linked to clinker as the cost of carbon mounts and the clinker factor of cement lowers. Slag supplies may be finite but Heidelberg Materials North America’s latest investment in Florida is further acceptance that one doesn’t just need clinker to make concrete.

Read Charles Zeynel’s interview on SCM Trends in 2023 in the June 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine

The 15th Global Slag Conference, Exhibition & Awards take place on 6 - 7 June 2023 in Düsseldorf, Germany

Europe: 12 decarbonisation-focused companies from across the European cement and concrete sector have launched the Alliance for Low-Carbon Cement & Concrete (ALCCC). The alliance has called on policymakers to change building standards to help low-carbon alternatives to enter the cement and concrete markets. It further said that green procurement and targeted financing instruments would help to reduce sectoral CO₂ emissions. It said that a progressive decline in clinker factor to 60%, 50% or 40% by 2050 will reduce CO₂ emissions by over 50%. The ALCCC says that it is ready to lead the sector towards a swift, low-cost and viable decarbonisation pathway. Participants in the alliance include France-based Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies, Ireland-based Ecocem and US-based Fortera.

Fortera's Europe director Thierry Legrand said "Climate action is a global priority, and collaboration is essential to advancing emissions-reducing technologies and policies. This alliance represents collective action by scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and environmental advocates to reduce CO₂ emissions from cement production."