Displaying items by tag: Germany

Germany: Denmark-based COBOD has supplied its BOD2 3D construction printer to the site of the world’s first 3D printed commercial apartment building in Wallenhausen, Bavaria. COBOD partner PERI will use the product to print a 380m² complex, consisting of five apartments across three stories.

General manager and founder of COBOD Henrik Lund-Nielsen said, “We are incredibly pleased, that we are beginning to see the fruits of the many 3D construction printers we have sold. The actual building projects have been delayed by the Coronavirus outbreak, but now they start to be revealed. This new German project is really a great milestone as the commercial nature of the building proves the competitiveness of the 3D construction printing technology for three floors buildings and apartment buildings. This, again, opens entirely new markets for our printers.”

Germany: The Catch4Climate project has moved into the planning stage of its oxyfuel pilot plant at the Mergelstetten cement plant. The group, comprising Buzzi Unicem’s subsidiary Dyckerhoff, HeidelbergCement, Schwenk Zement and Vicat, signed a letter of intent with the state’s prime minister and transport minister in Stuttgart in mid-November 2020.

The consortium intends to build and operate its own demonstration plant on a semi-industrial scale, to use the oxyfuel process to capture CO₂. In the future, the captured CO₂ will be used to produce so-called ‘reFuels’, climate-neutral synthetic fuels such as kerosene for air traffic, with the help of renewable electrical energy.

The cement producers formed CI4C – Cement Innovation for Climate in late 2019. The aim of the Catch4Climate project is to create the basis for a large-scale application of CO₂ capture technologies in cement plants enabling the later use of CO₂ as a raw material in other processes such as a carbon capture and utilisation/storage.

Germany: Dyckerhoff has reopened a railway siding at its integrated Amöneburg cement plant. The additional transport link joins road and water connections at the site. The company said that reusing the railway siding made sense given low water levels in the River Rhine, that made parts of the waterway unnavigable in 2018, as well as adding a sustainable transport route. The railway tracks at the site have not been used actively since the mid-2000s. The cement producer has repaired the tracks on its site and a related signalling system.

India: Shree Cement has ordered two vertical roller (VR) mills from Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer for the upcoming clinker line at its Raipur cement plant in Chhattisgarh. The supplier says that one of the mills will grind raw materials and the other will grind coal.

A MVR 6000 R-6 type raw mill will grind 800t/hr of raw material and have a drive power of 8700kW. Gebr. Pfeiffer said, “The grinding rollers of this mill can be equipped with roller tires for raw meal grinding as well as for cement grinding, provided that they have been designed according to the same force module. This saves money, because the identical components of rollers, tensioning system, roller arms, etc. mean that customers can reduce their spare parts inventory, since the same spare parts can be used for a raw meal mill and for a cement mill.” The mill will be equipped with an SLS 6000 VR high-efficiency classifier.

A MPS 2800 BK type mill will be used to grind coal with a capacity of 28t/hr, a drive power of 720kW and be “equipped with the latest design of the integrated SLS 2900 BK high-efficiency classifier optimised for MPS mills.”

The supplier said, “While the core components of the mills as well as the drive units will be supplied by Gebr. Pfeiffer from Europe, the Indian subsidiary Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) will provide components such as the mill and classifier housings, the steel foundation parts as well as internal parts of the classifiers.”

Germany: Spain-based Isigenere has installed a 739kW floating solar power plant on a lake at HeidelbergCement’s Dettelbach quarry in Bavaria. PV Magazine has reported that the 1900-panel solar power array, Bavaria’s largest, will power HeidelbergCement’s operations at the quarry.

Italy: Buzzi Unicem’s net sales fell slightly to Euro2.41bn in the first nine months of 2020 from Euro2.42bn in the same period in 2019. Its cement sales volumes declined by 1.8% to 21.7Mt from 22.1Mt. The group said that sales volumes recovered during the third quarter of 2020 due to a rebound of demand in Italy, stability in Germany and a ‘trend reversal’ in Russia. Net sales also increased in the US during the third quarter.

Germany: HeidelbergCement recorded net sales of Euro13.1bn over the first nine months of 2020, down by 8% year-on-year from Euro14.3bn over the corresponding period of 2019. Sales fell in most regions during the nine month period but rose in Africa-Eastern Mediterranean by 4% to Euro1.31bn from Euro1.26bn. Group cement volumes totalled 17.9Mt, down by 2% from 18.3Mt, while concrete volumes fell by 12% to 4.40Mt from 5.00Mt.

Speaking of the third quarter of 2020, chair Dominik von Achten said, “HeidelbergCement has achieved an excellent result. In an environment that continues to be characterised by major regional differences and great uncertainty, we were able to increase earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 17% in comparison to the third quarter of 2019.“ He added that the group expected earnings to grow in 2020 compared to 2019.

Poland: Cementownia Warta has ordered a BPB-SF heavy-duty arched plate conveyor for the new limestone crushing facility at its Warta integrated cement plant from Germany-based Aumund. The supplier says that it will deliver the equipment before the end of 2020.

Aumund said that it has delivered “more than 20 machines” to the Warta plant since the producer placed its first order with the company in 1998. In 2020 it delivered five KZB pan conveyors of a total capacity of 2300t/hr as part of a project to construct a 120,000t steel-roofed concrete silo at the plant.

Germany: Mining equipment supplier Halbach & Braun has announced its 100th anniversary, and says that it has postponed an official ceremony for the event until after Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are over.

Sales and marketing director Uwe Hackenberger gave, “very special thanks to our partners, the Yangquan Coal Industry Group, whose support paved the way for us to enter a new home market. Together and strong enough for the future, we are now able to supply complete mining systems from one source.” He added, “We would also like to thank our employees, suppliers, banks and state and local politicians who have always supported us with all their strength and accompanied us on our journey through the century.”

Germany: Robecco says that it took over the inerting business from Yara on 1 September 2020. The acquisition is intended to support customers and their future needs. The company says that combination of Yara’s inerting systems and robecco’s monitoring and control technology is a ‘unique tailor-made solution’ to maximise safety in preventive explosion protection.

With over 25 years’ experience, Robecco has become a specialist in preventive explosion protection and can provide complete packages of equipment for monitoring, control and CO₂ / N₂ inerting systems from a single source and one interface according to the relevant international and European norms and rules. The company holds long-established business relationships with customers worldwide providing preventive explosion protection solutions and automation services for the integration of explosion protection solutions into customers’ systems.