Displaying items by tag: Plant
France: Heidelberg Materials has announced plans for its CIRCO₂BETON concrete recycling project. It intends to build an industrial-scale selective separation unit at its Achères quarry near Paris. Here it will recycle demolished concrete by crushing it and separating it into its components: sand, aggregates, and recycled concrete paste (RCP). The recycled sand and aggregates will be reincorporated into new concrete.
The RCP will be transported to the Ranville cement plant in the Normandy region. There, a reactor for enforced carbonation will be installed to carbonate the RCP by exposing it to CO₂-containing exhaust gases from the kiln. The carbonated RCP acts as a carbon sink and will replace clinker in new low-carbon cement types. The project has the potential to reduce the CO₂ emissions of the Ranville cement plant by 20%.
CIRCO₂BETON is supported by the ‘Investment for the Future’ Program coordinated by the Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME). In addition, the Île-de-France region supports the selective separation plant at Achères through its zero-waste and circular economy plan. Subject to the funding, construction of both industrial pilots is scheduled to start in 2024 with production of RCP starting in 2025. The carbonation reactor is planned to be operational by 2026.
Nicola Kimm, the chief sustainability officer at Heidelberg Materials, said ”We are investing in a pioneering large-scale project based on innovative process technologies. Selective separation and CO₂ mineralisation are important levers to reduce the carbon footprint of our products. By closing the materials loop, we prove that concrete has the potential to be the most sustainable building product over its entire life cycle from production to recycling.”
Read more about RCP in the Decemeber 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine
Fortera continues construction of low-carbon cementitious material plant at CalPortland's Redding cement plant
10 July 2023US: In 2022, Fortera began building a 15,000t/yr-capacity plant to produce its low-carbon cementitious material, Fortera Reactive Calcium Carbonate (RCC), at CalPortland's Redding cement plant in California. The commercial-scale plant will produce a reactive form of calcium carbonate using CO2 from the kiln of the 600,000t/yr cement plant. Fortera's process converts 1t of limestone into 1t of Fortera RCC by capturing and mineralising CO2 from the cement plant's kiln. Fortera cement production emits 60% less CO2 than ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The 15,000t/yr plant will operate at 20 times the scale of previous pilot tests. The Redding Record newspaper has reported that 15 workers will be employed at the site.
Former Redding cement plant owner Lehigh Hanson formed an agreement with Fortera to collaborate on the low-carbon cement plant project in March 2021. The plant subsequently switched ownership to Martin Marietta Materials in October 2021, before CalPortland bought it in July 2022.
Spain: Cementos El Molino plans to invest Euro3.7m in an upgrade to energy infrastructure at its 450,000t Santa Eulalia grinding plant in Aragon. Alimarket Construction News has reported that the upgrade consists of a 12MW substation and a 2.4MW solar power plant. Euro2m-worth (54%) of investments will go towards construction of the subsystem and Euro1.7m (46%) towards the solar power plant. Cementos El Molino expects to carry out the investments before the end of 2023.
Pakistan: Dandot Cement says that its on-going upgrade to its Lahore cement plant reached 60% completion during the fourth quarter of the 2023 financial year, which ended on 30 June 2023. The project remains scheduled for completion in July 2023. Pakistan Company News has reported that the producer has taken delivery of new equipment, completed civil construction work, handed over the site to its engineering contractor, completed 75% of mechanical erection and conducted some tests. The producer awarded a new contract for installation of remaining portions of its control systems to an Uzbekistan-based contractor. Complete sections of the project include the plant's captive solar power plant.
Dandot Cement has made total investments worth US$12.3m in the project.
Zimbabwe: Khayah Cement (formerly Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe) commissioned a new vertical roller mill at its Manresa cement plant on 6 July 2023. The Chronicle newspaper has reported that the project constituted Phase 2 of Khayah Cement's expansion to the plant.
Austria: Rohrdorfer has bought 20 new railcars equipped with ÖBB Rail Cargo’s RockTainer SAND containers. The cars will transport limestone between the producer’s Ebensee quarry and its Gmunden cement plant. Each railcar consists of two RockTainer SAND containers mounted on an InnoWaggon carriage, with a maximum load of 134t. The new cars will increase the volume of despatches from the Ebensee quarry by 28% to 804t of limestone per train from 630t/train, enabling Rohrdorfer to transport 450,000t of limestone per operating season.
Ethiopia/India: Sinoma International Engineering and its subsidiaries have signed contracts to upgrade cement plants for Ethiopia-based Derba MIDROC Cement and India-based Ambuja Cement.
Sinoma International Engineering has signed a contract worth US$290m with Derba MIDROC Cement to build a 5000t/day clinker production line at the cement producer’s plant at Deba in Oromia. The project includes supplying a full line from raw material crushing to cement packaging. Once payment conditions are confirmed the project should take around 30 months.
Ambuja Cement has signed a contract with Sinoma subsidiary Tianjin Cement Industry Design and Research Institute (Sinoma TCDRI) to supply upgrades to its integrated Bhatapara plant in Chhattisgarh and its Farakka and Sankrail grinding plants in West Bengal. The clinker plant’s production capacity will be expanded to 4Mt/yr and both grinding plants will be increased to 2Mt/yr respectively. The value of the contract is around US$285m. Schedules for the proposed work will be agreed subject to further negotiation.
India: Ramco Cements has commissioned a 3000t/day integrated cement line at its Ramamasamy Raja Nagar cement plant in Tamil Nadu. Projects Today News has reported that the plant runs on renewable energy from a captive wind farm, and recycles 90% of water used in production.
Ramco Cements produces Ramco 53 Infra Super cement at the Ramamasamy Raja Nagar plant. The product allows for lower cement and admixture content to be used in the production of concrete structures.
Update on synthetic fuels, June 2023
28 June 2023Cemex highlighted its Clyngas project at its Alicante cement plant in Spain this week. The project will produce synthesis gas (syngas) from different types of waste for direct injection into the burner at the plant during the combustion process. It is being run in conjunction with Waste to Energy Advanced Solutions (WTEnergy), a company that Cemex invested in at the end of 2022. It is also receiving Euro4.4m in funding from the European Commission (EC) as part of its innovation fund for small scale projects. The initiative estimates that it will save over 400,000t of equivalent CO2 during the first 10 years of the project's life by replacing petroleum coke with syngas.
Clyngas is another example of Cemex’s innovation with alternative fuels for cement and lime. It follows on from the group’s work with hydrogen injection into cement kilns. As presented at the 15th Global CemFuels Conference 2022 it has been using hydrogen in low volumes as a combustion enhancer in more than 20 plants worldwide. However, it was also looking into using hydrogen more directly as a fuel and as a feedstock for other alternative fuels. WTEnergy’s gasification process could potentially link up to this as it converts waste streams such as wood chips, agricultural waste, refuse derived fuel (RDF), solid recovered fuel (SRF), dry sewage sludge, meat and bone meal, poultry litter and plastics into syngas. WTEnergy then proposes that its gasification process and/or the syngas can be used for power generation and thermal applications. In the case of the Clyngas project it will be the latter, as the gasification process will be used to boost the burnability characteristics of RDF with a high biomass content. One part of this to note is that the syngas can potentially be used to manufacture hydrogen. This would be a useful capability for a cement company, for example, that was already using alternative fuels and was now considering further decarbonisation by switching to using hydrogen.
A few other cement companies have been looking at synthetic fuels too, but this has generally been as a by-product of carbon capture and utilisation. This week Lafarge France, for example, said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Axens, EDF and IFP Energies Nouvelles for a synthetic fuel production trial. Its plan is to build a unit that will produce synthetic kerosene using captured CO2 from a carbon capture installation at Lafarge France's Saint-Pierre-La-Cour cement plant. The kerosene will then be sold to airlines. Other examples of cement companies looking at using captured CO2 to manufacture synthetic fuels include Finnsementti’s pre-engineering study with Aker Carbon Capture to consider producing methanol as a fuel for transport, Holcim’s and TotalEnergies’ various plans of what to do with the CO2 captured from the-to-be upgraded Obourg cement plant and Cemex Deutschland’s ambitions for its Rüdersdorf plant.
As can be seen above there are different types of synthetic fuels and cement companies are at the research and pilot stages. Although there isn’t a commonly accepted definition of what a synthetic fuel is, the general meaning is that of a fuel made from feedstock using a chemical reaction as opposed to, say, a refining process. The wide variety of potential synthetic fuels puts the confusion over the different types of hydrogen into perspective. However, this may be a problem for a later date if usage by cement companies becomes more serious.
What is a problem, though, has been the EC’s planned legislation to phase out the use of industrial CO2 in synthetic fuels by 2041. Cembureau, the European cement industry association, warned in late 2022 of the issues this would pose for industries trying to find a way to utilise their CO2 emissions where storage was too difficult or expensive. Its view was that while synthetic fuels using industrial CO2 are not fully net-zero, as the captured CO2 is later released into the atmosphere, it is a necessary short to medium term step for sectors trying to make the transition. Companies trying to build industrial-scale chemical plants for synthetic fuels need running periods of 20 to 30 years to achieve payback. As of March 2023 Cembureau was still concerned about the implication of proposed regulations, specifically with regards to the proposed criteria for which synthetic fuels could be used, based on their greenhouse gas emissions savings (at least 70% compared to the regular fuels being replaced). It directly linked this to synthetic fuels projects being launched by the cement sector that might be adversely affected by the new rules. The EC published the legislation in late June 2023 and it is set to become legal in mid-July 2023.
Using synthetic fuels either as a fuel or a by-product from cement production is an area of interest currently with the projects detailed above and others in progress. One vision for their use in Europe, at least, is that they might offer a route for carbon capture for cement plants without access to the logistic networks necessary for sequestration. Whether they find a place in cement manufacture either on a transitional basis or over a longer term should become clearer over the coming decade. Yet the EC’s new rules are likely to slow this process down as at least some of the planned pilots may become unviable in Europe. Other jurisdictions around the world take note.
Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak subsidiary CMS Cement has secured board approval to build a new 1.9Mt/yr clinker line at its Kuching cement plant at Jalan Mambong. This will more than triple its clinker capacity to 2.8Mt/yr. The Star newspaper has reported that construction will continue for 36 months from the date of groundbreaking. CMS Cement expects to invest US$161m in the project.
The Kuching cement plant is reportedly operating at 55% utilisation of its 2.75Mt/yr cement capacity. It currently relies on 40% of its own clinker to produce cement, with 60% of clinker imported. It aims to achieve clinker self-sufficiency to better serve growing markets in Sarawak and elsewhere, including Malaysia’s upcoming new capital city, Nusantara, on the opposite side of Borneo.