Displaying items by tag: Research

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement says that independent tests have confirmed that the radioactivity levels of cement produced at its 0.9Mt/yr Tochigi plant in Sano, Tochigi Prefecture are “below the lowest detectable limit,” meaning that the product is safe. The company said, “We hope that you will continue to use our products with peace of mind.”

Production at the plant was disrupted in 2011 when it was discovered that it was co-processing sewage sludge sourced from near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima Prefecture. The power plant suffered a nuclear meltdown following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that led to widespread radioactive fallout.

Thailand: King Monkut's University of Technology Thonburi has conducted a cradle-to-grave analysis of the environmental impacts of 1t of cement from neighbouring Myanmar. The study concluded that the cement’s production had major environmental impacts in terms of “climate change, photochemical oxidant formation, fine particular matter formation, terrestrial acidification, fossil resource scarcity, damage to ecosystems and damage to human health. Resultantly, researchers concluded that “some improvement measures should be considered, which include upgrading the cement manufacturing process, increasing the share of clinker substitutes, utilising alternative fuels, optimising energy efficiency and implementing energy recovery technologies."

China: Conch Group has announced the signing of a partnership agreement with Shanghai Jiaotong University for the establishment of a technology centre called the Intelligent Equipment Joint Research and Development Centre.

General manager He Chengfa said, “This centre established in cooperation with Shanghai Jiao Tong University is an important carrier for the group's innovation and development. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is a first-class domestic and internationally renowned comprehensive university with strong scientific research capabilities and a complete talent training system. It is hoped that Shanghai Jiaotong University will educate Conch Group's future scientific research team, enhance Conch Group's innovation level and provide assistance for the Conch Group to become a world-class enterprise with global competitiveness.”

US: LafargeHolcim says that Department of Energy institution National Energy Technology Laboratory has awarded US$1.5m of federal funding to the company’s CO₂MENT Colorado project. The project aims to capture 2.0Mt/yr of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the company’s 1.9Mt/yr Portland cement plant in Florence, Colorado for sequestration underground by Occidental.

The group said, “With the successful completion of the initial scoping study in June 2020 and confirmation of Department Of Energy funding, the partnership has committed to the next project phase.”

US: Solidia Technologies and France-based Chryso have announced a collaborative partnership for the further development of the Solidia ‘ultra-low’ CO₂ concrete product. The companies plan to use their “combined expertise to improve the sustainability performance and material properties” of the concrete.

“Incorporating Chryso’s exclusive water-reducing admixtures adapted to the specific chemistry of Solidia Concrete, will further reduce water consumption in the curing process,” said Tom Schuler, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Solidia Technologies.

Japan: A proposal by Mitsubishi Group on researching CO₂ injection into concrete has been approved for a grant from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO). This joint project between Mitsubishi Group, Kajima Corporation, and Chugoku Electric Power aims to improve the existing technology so that it can be applied to the reinforced and cast-in-place concretes used in building construction. At present the group said that current carbon-recycling techniques are mainly used for unreinforced concretes, such as concrete blocks.

Mitsubishi Group has already been involved in the development of concrete projects that take advantage of carbon-recycling, including a zero-emission concrete called CO₂-SUICOM. It added that carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, including carbon-recycling, are an excellent opportunity for the company to use its strengths between industries that both emit and use CO₂.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement is working on a three year CO₂ mineralisation research project from 2020 to 2022 with Yamaguchi University, Kyushu University and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO). The initiative plans to develop the technology to build a process that captures CO₂ exhaust from cement and power plants and then mineralises it with calcium-containing waste materials. It intends to use the process practically in 2030.

Mexico: Cemex says that it is involved in a working group “focussed on the application of FastCarb aggregates to concrete production” as part of its efforts towards net-zero CO₂ concrete production. FastCarb, administrated by the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board, is a project aimed at the production of aggregates from recycled concrete containing trapped carbon dioxide (CO₂) requisitioned from industrial exhaust streams.

Cemex said, “After completing the first phase of the experimental approach at the laboratory level with promising preliminary results, the project is now entering the second phase seeking to tackle the industrial approach. In this industrial approach phase, Cemex was recently assigned to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of the carbonated recycled concrete aggregates when used in ready-mix concrete in the laboratory facilities at the Cemex France National Technical Centre.”

Brazil: Norway-based Norsk Hydro and the Federal University of Para (UFPA) have announced their collaboration on the development of a low-carbon cement from bauxite residue from Norsk Hydro subsidiary Alunorte’s bauxite mining and alumina refining operations in the state of Pará. Electronic News has reported that the research partnership hopes to develop a new cement for commercial production and sale by 2030. This will use an estimated 500,000t/yr of waste bauxite residue.

Norsk Hydro bauxite and alumina research and development senior manager Erik Araujo said, “Hydro seeks to be a benchmark in sustainability in the aluminium industry. The research is an opportunity to promote intersectional advances in our environmental management, with a reduction in carbon emissions for the cement industry.

Hydrogen and its use in cement production has been adding a dash of colour to the industry news in recent weeks. Last week, Lafarge Zementwerke, OMV, Verbund and Borealis signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to plan and build a full-scale unit at a cement plant in Austria to capture CO₂ and process it with hydrogen into synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals. This week, Air Products and ThyssenKrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers (TUCE) signed a strategic agreement to work together in ‘key regions’ to develop projects supplying green hydrogen. Both of these developments follow the awarding of UK government funding in February 2020 to support a pilot project into studying a mix of hydrogen and biomass fuels at Hanson Cement’s Ribblesdale integrated plant.

As the title of this column suggests there is an environmental colour code to describe how hydrogen is made for industrial use. This is a bit more codified than when grey cement gets called ‘green’ but it pays to remember what the energy source is. So-called ‘green’ hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric or solar, ‘Grey’ hydrogen is made from steam reforming using fossil fuels and ‘Blue’ hydrogen is similar to grey but has the CO₂ emissions from the fuels captured and stored/utilised. Price is seen as the main obstacle to wider uptake of hydrogen usage as a fuel in industry although this is changing as CO₂ pricing mounts in some jurisdictions and the connected supply chain is developed. A study by BloombergNEF from March 2020 forecasted that green hydrogen prices could become cheaper than natural gas by 2050 in Brazil, China, India, Germany and Scandinavia but it conceded that many barriers would have to be overcome to get there. For example, hydrogen has to be manufactured making it more expensive than fossil fuels without government policy support and its, “lower energy density also makes it more expensive to handle.”

The three recent examples with respect to the cement industry are interesting because they are all exploring different directions. The Lafarge partnership in Austria wants to use hydrogen to aid the utilisation side of its carbon capture at a cement plant. The industrial suppliers, meanwhile, are positioning themselves in the equipment space for the technology required to use hydrogen on industrial plants. Secondly, ThyssenKrupp has alkaline water electrolysis technology that it says it has used at over 600 projects and electrochemical plants worldwide. Air Products works with industrial gas production, storage and handling.

Finally, the Hanson project in the UK will actually look at using hydrogen as a partial replacement for natural gas in the kiln combustion system. A Cembureau position paper in mid-2019 identified that the challenges to explore in using hydrogen in cement production included seeing how its use might affect the physical aspects of the kiln system, the fuel mass flows, temperature profile, heat transfer and the safety considerations for the plant. Later that year a feasibility study by the Mineral Products Association (MPA), Verein Deutscher Zementwerke (VDZ) and Cinar for the UK government department that is funding the Hanson project concluded that a hydrogen flame’s high heat in a burner alone might not make it suitable for clinker formation. However, the study did think that it could be used with biomass to address some of that alternative fuel’s “calorific limitations” at high levels. Hence the demonstration of a mixture of both hydrogen and biomass.

That’s all on hydrogen but, finally, if you didn’t log into yesterday’s Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference you missed a treat. One highlight was consultant John Kline’s presentation on using drones to inspect refractory in some hard to reach places. Flying a camera straight into a (cool) pyro-processing line was reminiscent of a science fiction film! Global Cement has encountered the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles in quarry and stockpile surveys previously but this was a step beyond.

The proceedings pack - including video, presenter slides and delegate list - for the Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference 2020 is available to buy now