Displaying items by tag: ThyssenKrupp

France: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Ciments Calcia plans to lay the first stone of a major upgrade project at its Airvault cement plant on 5 October 2022. The event will mark the start of the construction phase of a new 4000t/day clinker production line, according to La Nouvelle République newspaper. The Euro300m project will be built by Germany-based ThyssenKrupp.

India: ThyssenKrupp Industries India has reported information on recent orders with UltraTech Cement, Shree Cement and Hills Cement.

Its Polysius division has secured an order from UltraTech Cement for the design, engineering and supply of two 10,000t/day pyro processing lines with Polycom rolls for raw materials grinding.

Shree Cement has ordered pyro processing equipment including a Polytrack clinker cooler for a new cement plant at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. ThyssenKrupp Industries India noted that it was the “maiden plant order” from Shree Cement and of “great strategic importance to us.”

Hills Cement has also made a first order with ThyssenKrupp. In this case it has requested pyro processing equipment including a clinker cooler for the second production line at its plant in Meghalaya.

Congratulations are due to the National Cement Company of Alabama and Vicat for the inauguration of the new production line at the Ragland cement plant in Alabama. The event took place on 21 July 2022.

The US$300m project was originally announced in late 2019. It then took two years to build with construction starting in January 2020. Key features include a raw vertical grinding mill, a new roller mill, a five stage preheater tower, an automatic clay storage system, a 78m tall homogenisation silo, an alternative fuels storage area for tyre-derived fuel, sawdust and wood chips, a laboratory and a new control room. The new kiln was previously reported to have a clinker production capacity of 5000t/day and it will add up to 2Mt/yr of cement production capacity to the plant. ThyssenKrupp signed up as the principal equipment supplier in 2019 and H&M was the main contractor. The production line is expected to reduce energy consumption by one third. Further change is scheduled with a switch to production of Portland limestone cement (PLC) from Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) by the start of 2023.

Vicat has repeatedly noted its affection for the plant as it was the first cement plant the group purchased outside of France, back in 1974. Indeed, Vicat’s group chair and chief executive officer Guy Sidos personally managed the Ragland plant in 2001. However, rather more prosaic reasons may also have been behind the decision to expand Ragland. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS) data, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee’s cement shipments grew by nearly 5% year-on-year to 7.1Mt in 2019 from 6.8Mt in 2018. Shipments are up by 3% year-on-year to 2.5Mt in the first four months of 2022 and the three states were the fifth largest region in the US for cement shipments in April 2022. A shortage of cement was also reported in Alabama in April 2022.

The other big US-based cement plant expansion is Lehigh Hanson’s US$600m upgrade to its Mitchell plant in Indiana. It also celebrated a milestone this week with a ‘topping out’ ceremony to mark the placement of the final section of steel for the stack. Another recent achievement here was the completion of a 169,000t storage dome supplied by Dome Technologies. The supplier says that the 67m diameter and 48m tall dome is the second largest clinker storage facility in Europe and North America, after one it previous built in Romania in 2008.

The Mitchell K4 project was announced in mid-2018 and then ground breaking began in late 2019. However, the start of the coronavirus pandemic delayed construction in early 2020 before it restarted in September 2020. The revised commissioning date was then moved back about half a year to early 2023. The key part of this project is that it will replace the plant’s three current kilns with just one. The new production line will increase the site’s production capacity, reduce energy usage and decrease CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement. It was reported by local press back in 2018 that the project would increase the plant’s cement production capacity to 2.8Mt/yr. The project has been linked to supplier KHD with CCC Group as the contractor.

It’s fascinating to see two major new upgrades to cement plants emerging in a mature market like the US and during an unprecedented event like the emergence of coronavirus. No doubt compelling tales will emerge of how both teams coped with managing nine-figure capital expansion projects as a global public health emergency unfolded. The US market has been on a roll in recent years, despite all the uncertainty in the world, and so far it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. With luck both of the projects feature above have timed their opening right.

Germany: ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions’ Polysius division says that it has been commissioned by Buzzi Unicem, HeidelbergCement, Schwenk Zement and Vicat to build a pure oxyfuel kiln system at the Mergelstetten cement plant as part of the Cement Innovation for Climate (CI4C) project. No dates of the start of construction or final project commissioning of the industrial trial have been disclosed. CI4C was originally formed in 2019.

The Polysius pure oxyfuel process is a new type of clinker production process in which the otherwise normal ambient air is replaced by pure oxygen in the kiln combustion process. One advantage of the technology is that atmospheric nitrogen is eliminated from the clinker burning process leading to much higher concentrations of CO₂ in the exhaust gas compared to a conventional kiln. As such the process aims to concentrate, capture and reuse almost 100% of the CO₂ produced in a cost-effective manner. The medium-term goal is to further process the captured CO₂ with the help of renewable energy into products such as kerosene for air traffic.

Vietnam: ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions Vietnam (TISV) and the Vietnam Institute of Building Materials (VIBM) have signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between both parties on the research and application of new technologies towards reducing the CO₂ emissions of cement production. At the signing ceremony, Lukas Schoeneck, the chief executive officer of TISV confirmed his commitment to collaborate with VIBM, under the guidance of the Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Van Sinh. The parties now plan to identify a lighthouse project that will use alternative fuels in response to an increase in the global price of coal.

Pham Van Bac, Head of the Building Material Division at the Ministry of Construction, said that Vietnam is implementing the a strategy for the development of building materials for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050. The plan for the cement industry is to limit the use of natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save energy while promoting the maximum use of waste streams from industries and domestic sources as raw materials in cement production.

US: ThyssenKrupp Polysius has won an order for the supply of two of its roll units with compound cast roll bodies at a US cement facility. The equipment will form part of a Polycom high-pressure grinding roll. ThyssenKrupp Polysius’ Germany and US service teams will collaborate on the order, for delivery in March 2023.

African cement producers have confirmed their interest in calcined clay over the last month with two new projects. The big one was announced last week when FLSmidth revealed that it had received an order from CBI Ghana. This follows the launch of a Limestone Calcined Clay (LC3) project in Malawi in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi.

FLSmidth says that its order includes the world’s largest gas suspension calciner system and a complete grinding station. The kit will be installed at CBI Ghana’s plant near Accra in the south of the country. The new clay calciner system is expected to substitute 30 - 40% of the clinker in the final product, resulting in a reduction of up to 40% CO₂/t of blended cement compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). Overall the equipment manufacturers reckon that the grinding plant will reduce its CO₂ emissions by 20% compared to its current output. There has been no indication of how much the order costs but CBI Ghana expects energy and fuel savings, as well as lower overheads from clinker imports.

The public announcement of the Ghana project was also foreshadowed by the visit of Professor Karen Scrivener to the Ghana Standards Authority in February 2022. This was significant because Scrivener is the head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and has been one of the key instigators of the LC3 initiative since the early 2000s. Other calcined clay cements are available such as Futurecem or polysius activated clay (see below) but LC3 is arguably the most famous given its promotion in developing countries.

The Malawi project is at a much earlier stage. The government launched the public private partnership LC3 project in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi and Terrastone, a brick manufacturer. The Ministry of Mining is currently developing a memorandum of understanding with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a Germany-based development agency. India-based Tara Engineering has also been linked to the scheme.

One thing to note about the Malawi project is that it is the first calcined clay project in the cement industry based in East Africa. All the other African ones are based in West Africa. The other two projects in this region are run by Turkey-based Oyak Çimento and its subsidiary Cimpor. The first of these is a 0.3Mt/yr calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement grinding production line that was commissioned in mid-2020. This plant is based at Abidjan in Ivory Coast. The second is a new plant that Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions is building for Oyak Çimento at Kribi in Cameroon. This unit has a 720t/day calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement production capacity and it will use the supplier’s ‘polysius activated clay’ technology. ThyssenKrupp’s involvement came to light in early 2020 and commissioning was scheduled for late 2021. However, no update on the state of the project has been issued so far in 2022.

As the above examples show, Sub-Saharan Africa has at least one live calcined clay plant, two plants are being built and there’s one more at the development stage. This puts the region neck-and-neck with Europe, which has a similar mixture of current and developing projects. This column has been covering the wider trend of the growing usage of various types of blended cements recently, particularly in Europe and the US, with slag cements, Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) and more. With PLC, for example, note the transition of another two North American cement plants to PLC this week alone. As for calcined clay cement, it is fascinating to see the focus move to a different part of the world. Several commentators have predicted that the future looks set to be dominated by blended cements using whichever supplementary cementitious material (SCM) is most available for each plant. The growth in calcined clay confirms this view.

Global Cement is researching clay calcination use in the cement industry for the next edition of the Global Cement Directory. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any information on new industrial and research installations.

Germany: ThyssenKrupp Uhde, Holcim and the Technische Universität Berlin have started a joint project to investigate the use of a novel amine scrubbing technology for carbon capture. The goal is to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions from existing cement plants and at the same time utilise the captured CO₂ for other applications. This includes the development of new mass transfer process equipment that is more efficient and resilient to contaminations. The project is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

The equipment is being tested using exhaust gas at Holcim’s Beckum plant. Various possibilities for using the captured CO₂ are also being examined, such as manufacturing methanol or sustainable fuels. The aim is develop a technology that can be retrofitted at existing cement plants.

Ralph Kleinschmidt, head of technology, innovation and sustainability at ThyssenKrupp Uhde said, "Amine scrubbing is already commonly used to recover CO₂ from process gases or exhaust gases. Now, we are developing the technology further and optimising it for the cement industry. Additional applications for capturing CO₂ direct at source, such as in waste incineration plants, are also possible."Arne Stecher, head of decarbonisation at Holcim Germany added that the company is testing different processes to find the best carbon capture technology.

From the Nordics to the Mediterranean, European countries lead the field in reduced-clinker cement production using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). While consumers, faced with ever-greater choice, continue to opt for sustainability, projects to improve existing SCMs and develop new ones have won government backing and have become a matter of serious investment for other heavy industries beside cement. European cement producers’ decisions are steering the course to a world beyond CEM I. Yet, even in Europe, great untapped potential remains.

Companies generated a good deal of marketing buzz around their latest reduced-CO₂ cement ranges in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022: Buzzi Unicem’s CGreen in Germany and Italy, Holcim’s EcoPlanet in six markets from Romania to Spain, Cementir Holding’s Futurecem in Denmark and Benelux, and Cemex’s Vertua in Spain and several other countries. All boast reduced clinker factors through the use of alternative raw materials. This, however, is really a rebranding of a long-established norm in Europe.

Since 2010, cements other than CEM I have constituted over 75% of average annual cement deliveries across Cembureau member countries (all cement-producing EU member states, plus Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and Ukraine). This statistic breaks down differently from country to country. CEM II is the norm in Austria, Finland, Portugal and Switzerland, with deliveries in the region of 90%. Portland limestone cement (PLC) makes up a majority of deliveries in all four. It has been central to Switzerland’s transition to 89% (3.72Mt) of CEM II deliveries out of a total 4.18Mt of cement despatched in 2021. There, the main types of cement were CEM II/B-M (T-LL) Portland composite cement, with 1.38Mt (33%), and two different classifications of PLC: CEM II/A-LL PLC, with 1.28Mt (31%), and CEM II/B-LL PLC, with 888,000t (21%).

A second approach is that of the Netherlands, where CEM III blast furnace slag cement with a clinker factor below 65% predominates, favoured for its sulphate resistance and the protection it offers against chloride-initiated corrosion of steel reinforcement in marine settings. By contrast, the UK has traditionally maintained a higher reliance on CEM I cement. This can be partly explained by the preference of builders there for adding fly ash or ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) at the mixing stage. Nonetheless, CEM II Portland fly ash cement held a 14% (1.43Mt) market share in the UK’s 10.2Mt of cement consumption in 2021.

The UK Mineral Products Association (MPA) has identified limestone as an underutilised resource in the country’s cement production. Together with HeidelbergCement subsidiary Hanson Cement, it has applied for a change to National Application standards to allow the production of Portland composite cement from fly ash and limestone or GGBFS and limestone. The association has forecast that Portland composite cement could easily rise to 30 – 40% of UK cement consumption, and that this has the potential to eliminate 8% of the sector’s 7.8Mt/yr-worth of CO₂ emissions.

Metallurgical waste streams have long flowed into European cement production, primarily as GGBFS, but also as bauxite residue. In 2021, alumina production in the EU alone generated 7Mt of bauxite residue, of which the bloc recycled just 100,000t (1.4%) that year. Two projects – the Holcim Innovation Center-led ReActiv project and Titan Cement and others’ REDMUD project – aim to produce new alternative cementitious materials from bauxite residue.

By collaborating with other industries, cement producers’ investments can most effectively reduce the overall cost of using these materials in cement production. In Germany, HeidelbergCement and ThyssenKrupp’s Save CO₂ project aims to develop new improved latent hydraulic binders or alternative pozzolan from GGBFS by producing slag from directly reduced iron (DRI). The Save CO₂ team believes that GGBFS substitution for clinker has the capacity to eliminite 200Mt/yr of CO₂ emissions from global cement production.

Meanwhile in the world of mining, ThyssenKrupp and others’ NEMO project is investigating the recovery of a useable mineral fraction for cement production from the extractive waste of the Luikonlahti and Sotkamo mines in Finland and the Tara mine in Ireland, through bioleaching and cleaned mineral residue upcycling. This may give cement producers full access to Europe’s 28Bnt stockpiles of sulphidic mining waste, of which mines generate an additional 600Mt each year.

Denmark-based CemGreen, which produces the calcined clay supplementary cementitious material CemShale, is developing a shale granule heat-treating technology called CemTower. This consists of three pieces of equipment vertically integrated into cement plants’ preheaters, kilns and coolers, and brings the processing of waste materials – here oil shale – to the cement plant.

Lastly, cement producers are exploring the possible uses of waste made of cement itself. In Wallonia, HeidelbergCement subsidiary CBR’s CosmoCem project is investigating the production of alternative cement additives from large available flows of local demolition, soil remediation and industrial waste. Similarly, the Greece-based C2inCO₂ project seeks to mineralise fines from concrete recycling for HeidelbergCement to use in the production of novel cements in its Greek operations.

In Switzerland, ZND Portland composite cement (produced using fine mixed granulate from building demolitions) is the third largest cement type, with 178,000t (4.3%) of total deliveries – narrowly behind CEM I with 239,000t (5.7%).Holcim Schweiz developed its Susteno 4 ZND Portland composite cement with Switzerland’s lack of any ash or slag supply in mind, demonstrating the potential flexibility of a circular economic approach to cement production.

On 21 March 2022, the University of Trier reported that it is in the process of mapping mineral resources, waste deposits and usable residues ‘on a cross-border scale,’ in an effort to produce new materials for use in cement production. Industry participants include France-based Vicat, CBR, Buzzi Unicem subsidiary Cimalux and CRH subsidiary Eqiom. Vicat is preparing a kiln at its 1Mt/yr Xeuilley cement plant in Meurthe-et-Moselle to use in testing new alternative raw materials developed under the project.

For Cembureau and its members, work continues, with the goal of Net Zero by 2050 constantly in sight. This goal includes a reduction in members’ clinker-to-cement ratios to well below 65%. In this, the association and its members are working towards a world not just beyond CEM I, but beyond CEM II, too. What exactly this will mean remains to be seen.

Sources

CemSuisse, ‘Lieferstatistik,’ 11 January 2022, https://www.cemsuisse.ch/app/uploads/2022/01/Lieferstatistik-4.-Quartal-2021.pdf

WSA, ‘December 2021 crude steel production and 2021 global crude steel production totals,’ 25 January 2022, https://worldsteel.org/media-centre/press-releases/2022/december-2021-crude-steel-production-and-2021-global-totals/

MPA, ‘Low carbon multi-component cements for UK concrete applications,’ July 2018, https://prod-drupal-files.storage.googleapis.com/documents/resource/public/Low%20carbon%20multi-component%20cements%20for%20UK%20concrete%20applications%20PDF.pdf

European Commission, ‘European Training Network for Zero-waste Valorisation of Bauxite Residue (Red Mud),’ 16 July 2020, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/636876

European Commission, ‘Industrial Residue Activation for sustainable cement production,’ 16 February 2022, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/958208

Recycling Portal, Zement der Zukunft – Forschungsprojekt „SAVE CO₂“ gestartet, 28 May 2021, https://recyclingportal.eu/Archive/65677

h2020-NEMO, ‘Project,’ https://h2020-nemo.eu/project-2/

European Commission, ‘Green cement of the future: CemShale + CemTower,’ 14 April 2021, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101009382

CosmoCem, ‘Communiqué de Presse,’ https://cosmocem.org/

CO₂ Win, ‘C²inCO₂: Calcium Carbonation for industrial use of CO₂,’ https://co2-utilization.net/en/projects/co2-mineralization/c2inco2/

Les Echos, ‘Rendre le ciment moins gourmand en CO₂,’ 21 March 2022, https://www.lesechos.fr/pme-regions/innovateurs/des-substituts-au-clinker-rendent-le-ciment-moins-gourmand-en-co2-1395002

US: Thyssenkrupp has opened its new Reno, Nevada, service centre to customers. The centre will serve cement customers in the Western US and Canada.

Thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions president Mark Terry said “We want to be where our customers need us! Thyssenkrupp already has numerous service centres distributed around the world. With an understanding of our local markets, and clientele, we are able to react, deliver faster and reduce transport time as well as costs. The service centre in Reno is another milestone for us here in North America!”