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Coolbrook has been in the news recently with collaboration deals struck with Cemex and UltraTech Cement. First the Finland-based company officially launched its Roto Dynamic Heater (RDH) technology with a memorandum of understanding signed with Cemex in May 2022. Then, this week, it signed a similar agreement with UltraTech Cement.

The specifics of either agreement are unknown but the target is clearly to build an industrial pilot of an electric kiln – or something like it - at a cement plant. Coolbrook says it has run a pilot of its RDH technology in Finland. Further tests are now scheduled to continue for two years starting from September 2022 at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus at Geleen in the Netherlands. Commercial scale demonstrations are scheduled from 2022 with the hope of commercial use from 2024. Links with Cemex and UltraTech Cement seem to suggest progress. At the same time Coolbrook will be testing its RotoDynamic Reactor (RDR) technology, which promises to electrify the steam cracking process used in plastic manufacturing.

Publically available details on the RDH technology are light. In its promotional material Coolbrook says that it can achieve process temperatures of up to around 1700°C. This is crucial to achieve full clinker formation in a cement kiln. Reaching this temperature with non-combustion style kilns, such as solar reactors, has previously been a problem. Notably, Synhelion and Cemex said in February 2022 that they had managed to produce clinker using concentrated solar radiation. Retrofit possibilities and compact equipment size are also mentioned in the promotional material for the RDH. The former is an obvious attraction but size of equipment footprint is increasingly emerging as a potential issue for cement plants looking to reduce their CO₂ emissions. Rick Bohan from the Portland Cement Association (PCA) presented a summary of the potential and problems of emerging carbon capture and utilisation/storage (CCUS) technologies for cement plants in the US at the Virtual Global CemCCUS Seminar that took place on 14 June 2022. He noted that installing CCUS equipment makes cement plants start to look different (more like petrochemical plants in the view of Global Cement Weekly) and that they may require more space to install it all.

Coolbrook hasn’t been the only organisation looking at kiln electrification. The installation with the most available information on kiln electrification has been the Decarbonate project, led by the VTT, formerly known as the Technical Research Centre of Finland. The project has built a pilot rotary kiln with a length of 8m inside a shipping container. It has a production capacity of around 25kg/hr. The system reportedly uses fixed radiant heating coils around the kiln, surrounded by insulation materials. Early results presented to the 1st Virtual Global CemPower Seminar in late 2021 were that the kiln started up, sufficient calcination was occurring and the system was operated continuously for three days at a temperature of 1000°C with no problems reported. Further research was scheduled to carry on into 2022 with longer trials planned for three different materials.

HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary in Sweden, Cementa, completed a feasibility study on implementing electrified cement production at its Slite plant in 2019. It then said that it was conducting further study with electricity producer Vattenfall as part of CemZero project. This consists of three projects running to 2025. Namely: heat transfer with plasma in rotary kilns; direct separation of carbon dioxide from calcination of carbonate-based raw materials in the production of cement clinker and burnt lime; and carbon dioxide-free products with electrified production - reactivity of cement clinker with secondary additives. HeidelbergCement has since announced plans to build a full scale 1.8Mt/yr carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant at the Slite cement plant by 2030.

How this would fit with any kiln electrification plans is unknown. However, one attraction of moving to an electrical kiln, for all of the projects above, is to cut out the 40 – 50% of a cement plant’s CO₂ emissions that arise from the fuel that is burnt. Taking a kiln electric also makes CO₂ capture easier. Much of the remainder of the CO₂ released comes from the decomposition of limestone during calcination when clinker is created. Substitute out fossil or alternative fuels and the flue gas becomes much purer CO₂.

It is early days for cement kiln electrification but progress is happening both commercially and scientifically. The next step to watch out for will be the first pilot installation at a cement plant. One point to finish with is a comment that Rick Bohan made at the IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference that took place in May 2022: carbon capture is expected to double a cement plant’s energy consumption. Kiln electrification is one potential route for cement production to reach net zero. CCUS is another. If one or both occur then a low carbon future could be a high energy one also.

Watch out for Global Cement’s forthcoming interview with Coolbrook in the September 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine

For more on CCUS, download the proceedings pack for the Virtual Global CemCCUS Seminar 2022

For more on Synhelion and Cemex read the interview in the December 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine interview

Egypt: Lafarge Egypt has appointed Jimmy Khan as its chief executive officer (CEO).

Khan has worked for Holcim, LafargeHolcim and Lafarge for 18 years. Notable positions include becoming Head of Business Processes, Internal Control and Audit - Nigeria in 2013, CEO of LafargeHolcim Mauritius and Seychelles in 2015 and Country CEO of Zambia in 2018. He is a graduate of the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech in the US.

US: CalPortland has appointed Hamed Maraghechi as its Director of the Central Research Laboratory. He will be based at the CalPortland Center of Technical Excellence in southern California where he will conduct new research and testing related to issues such as carbon reduction and sequestration to help the company achieve its commitment to lowering greenhouse gases. He will also oversee all advanced analytical services for customers and for internal operations, in this newly created position.

Maraghechi holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a materials focus from the Pennsylvania State University, a master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and a master’s degree in Polymer Engineering from the University of Tehran in Iran. He was most recently a senior scientist at Fortera working on the design and development of low CO₂ cement and concrete formulations. Prior to Fortera, he worked as a scientist at Boral IP Holdings and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

Tajikistan: Fon-Cement has laid the first stone in the construction of its upcoming Ayni cement plant in Sughd Province. Once operational, the plant will create 120 jobs locally.

Egypt: Misr Cement Qena's board of directors has voted for the company to continue operating its Qena cement plant after the end of a management contract with Arab Swiss Engineering Company (ASEC) on 30 June 2022.

Misr Cement Qena reported an operating incomeUS$5.69m in the first quarter of 2022, up by 59% year-on-year from US$3.58m in the first quarter of 2021. Its net profit in the quarter rose by 74% to US$2.56m from US$1.47m.

Liberia: Fouta Cement has secured a US$21.2m financing package for the construction of its upcoming 350,000t/yr Monrovia grinding plant. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has reported that the package consists of a US$5.4m loan from IFC's own account, a US$10.8m loan from the International Development Association's Private Sector Window Blended Finance Facility (IDAPSWBFF) and a US$5m from Bank of Africa United Kingdom (BAUK).

Fouta Cement's managing director Hamidou Gnan said "IFC's package of long-term investment and advisory services gives us the foundation and support we need to make the switch from reseller to manufacturer, thereby adding more value and creating more jobs in Liberia."

Pakistan: Fauji Cement has ordered three MVR vertical roller mills from Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer for its upcoming Salar cement plant in Dera Ghazi Khan/Punjab Province. The supplier says that the order consists of a 520t/hr MVR 5600 R-4 mill for grinding raw materials and two 180t/hr MVR 5000 C-4 mills for cement grinding. China-based Hefei Cement will handle the order.

Pakistan: DG Khan Cement Company is ready to export 50,000t of cement to the US following a certification process. The Tomini Felicity bulk carrier was reportedly being loaded at the Port of Karachi in mid-June 2022 for shipping to Houston in Texas, according to the News International newspaper. The transport is part of a 100,000t deal with a US-based company that was arranged in mid-2021. The intervening period has been spent arranging the necessary certificates. The export is believed to be the first time a Pakistan-based producer has sent cement to the US.

Turkey: OYAK Cement has detailed its progress towards net zero CO₂ cement production in its Integrated Report 2021. The report's focus is sustainability and digitalisation. Under itsCement 4.0 CO₂ emissions reduction initiative, OYAK Cement has proceeded with efficiency improvements at its cement plants.

OYAK Cement is committed to net zero CO₂ cement production by 2050 and reductions in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global climate change to 1.5°C by 2030.The producer is collaborating withthe Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) to realise its emission reduction goals.

South Korea: A truck driver strike has ended after seven days. The Korea Herald newspaper has reported that the government has agreed to extend a freight rate-based minimum wage system. The total cost to the cement industry was US$70.6m,