Displaying items by tag: funding

Canada: Sustainable materials startup EnviCore has raised US$3m in its seed funding round led by CSN Inova Ventures (the corporate venture capital arm of Brazil’s Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional), Heidelberg Materials and others. The funding will scale up Envicore’s production of low-carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), like mining tailings, slag, shale and glass. The company’s technology reportedly reduces the carbon footprint of cement production by up to 30%, using recycled mineral feedstock, with the SCMs replacing up to 35% of Portland cement in concrete. Proceeds will expand EnviCore's production capacity and support new business development, operations and research and development efforts. Heidelberg Materials, together with EnviCore, will conduct a feasibility study for a pilot SCM production facility close to one of Heidelberg Materials’ recycling hubs.

CEO and co-founder Shahrukh Shamim said "This investment marks a pivotal moment in our journey to commercialise a game-changing technology in the cement industry. The support from CSN, Heidelberg Materials and other investors will allow us to scale up quickly and meet the growing demand for greener building solutions."

UK: The government has announced a €26.3bn investment to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in northern England. The investment will subsidise three projects to capture CO₂ from various sources, including Heidelberg Materials’ Padeswood cement plant, and support infrastructure for transporting and storing CO₂ in Liverpool Bay and the North Sea. The initiative also plans to establish the UK's first large-scale hydrogen production plant. The funding, promised over the next 25 years, aims to establish two carbon capture clusters in Merseyside and Teesside. The investment is expected to create ‘thousands’ of jobs, attract €9.5bn in private investment and advance the UK's climate objectives.

Heidelberg Materials UK CEO Simon Willis said “Today’s announcement from the government to drive ahead with investment in CCS clusters is a major milestone in the decarbonisation of UK industry and sets the construction sector on the path to net zero. As part of the HyNet North West decarbonisation cluster, we are bringing forward our plans for the CCS plant at a UK cement works at Padeswood in North Wales. The government’s backing of this critical technology means that the production of zero carbon cement before the end of this decade has taken a big step forward.”

Sweden: Heidelberg Materials' Slite CCS project in Gotland has received new funding. The Just Transition Fund has provided approximately €6.1m to support project preparation from 2024 to 2026, aiming for operational readiness by 2030. The project targets the creation of a fully decarbonised plant with the capacity to capture 1.8Mt/yr of CO₂, potentially reducing Sweden's total emissions by 4%.

US: Fortera has raised US$85m in a funding round to increase its production of ‘low to zero-carbon’ cement, Bloomberg reports. New investors include Wollemi Capital, Saint-Gobain venture capital arm NOVA, Presidio Ventures and Alumni Ventures, alongside existing investors Khosla Ventures and Singapore state fund Temasek.

The startup, valued at US$355m, utilises a technology that captures CO₂ emissions from traditional cement production and converts them into a mineral form for low-carbon cement. Fortera's first industrial ‘green’ cement plant operates at CalPortland's facility in Redding, California.

US: Heidelberg Materials North America has finalised award negotiations with the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. The Mitchell cement plant in Indiana will receive US$300,000 to begin the first phase of its decarbonisation project, part of a broader initiative of up to US$500m in DOE funding to support full-scale carbon capture, transport and storage developments. The Mitchell cement plant has tripled its previous production capacity, with this project aiming to capture and process about 2Mt/yr of CO₂.

Chris Ward, president and CEO of Heidelberg Materials North America, said "This critical milestone of bringing our project under award with the US Department of Energy is a significant step in building the first full-scale application of carbon capture and storage for the cement industry in the US.”

UK: UK-based startup Cocoon has raised €4.9m in pre-seed funding to develop technology that repurposes byproducts from electrified steel furnaces into a ‘near-identical replacement’ for blast furnace slag, according to the company. The modular technology integrates into existing steel-making processes without disrupting operations or requiring high capital expenditure, reports UK Tech News. Cocoon targets a 50% replacement of cement in concrete, aiming to reduce emissions for producers. Initial tests are underway at a steel plant in northern England, followed by another in the US.

Cocoon CEO Eliot Brooks said "We’re turning a byproduct with little use into a valuable product that the market badly needs and can be easily integrated into existing supply chains. By repairing a broken link in the circular economy, Cocoon provides steel makers with a new revenue stream while meeting the low-carbon material needs of the concrete industry. For every 1t of Cocoon’s slag-based cementitious material used, 1t of CO₂ can be avoided."

Brooks hopes Cocoon's climate technology will be integrated into a pilot plant by late 2025.

UK: A steel and cement co-recycling process developed at the University of Cambridge has received US$2.9m in seed funding. Cambridge Electric Cement is utilising slag produced during the steelmaking process, which uses electric arc furnaces instead of blast furnaces, as clinker for cement. The researchers are conducting a US$8.4m trial called Cement 2 Zero to test the production process, aiming to produce 110t of recycled cement during the two-year program.

Canada: Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, announced the reinvestment of up to US$1.6m from industrial pollution pricing proceeds into a new emissions reduction project at St Marys Cement in St Marys, Ontario. This initiative will involve the installation of a new kiln utilising low-carbon fuels, including discarded plastics, to reduce the use of carbon-intensive fuels used in the manufacturing process by up to 30%. The project aims for a reduction of over 39,900t of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to Foreign Affairs news.

Australia: Woodside Energy and Cemex have invested US$6.7m in Melbourne-based KC8 Capture Technologies to support its efforts in achieving net zero emissions via carbon capture and storage.

KC8 is partnering with Cement Australia to construct a commercial demonstration plant in Gladstone, Queensland, aiming to capture 15t/day of CO₂. A partnership with Cemex aims to capture over 100t/day of CO₂ at one of its major plants. Additionally, KC8 plans a commercial pilot at the US Department of Energy’s National Carbon Capture Centre to capture 10-15t/day of CO₂ from natural gas combustion flue gas. The initiative has also secured US$6m from Low Emission Technology Australia and US$11.26m from the US government.

Executive director Greg Ross said "The funds will be used to expand KC8’s team and expedite deployment of its technology into hard-to-abate industries, such as cement – through a number of key projects."

Germany: Alcemy, manufacturer of low-carbon ‘Cem X’ cement, has raised US$10m to scale up its cement decarbonisation solution. The funding round will support research and development and Alcemy's entry into new markets, including the US, in 2024.

CEO Leopold Spenner said "With this additional nearly US$10m in funding and support from Norrsken VC, in addition to our first-round investors, we're paving the way to a low-carbon construction industry, one project at a time."