Displaying items by tag: low carbon cement

Cementir Group launched two of its lower carbon cement products in the Middle East and Africa markets this week. We’ll take a look at this in more detail and cover other recent products news from cement producers.

Egypt-based Sinai White Cement will manufacture the products under Cementir’s D-Carb umbrella. One will be a Limestone Portland cement, to the CEM II/A-LL 52.5N specification EN197-1, with around a 10% clinker reduction. The other will be CEM II/B-LL 42.5N with around a 20% clinker reduction. Both of these reductions are in comparison to Aalborg White CEM I 52.5R. D-Carb is the name of Cementir’s product range for white low-carbon cements. It was launched in European markets in 2024, with II/ALL 52.5R cement, and then expanded to Asia Pacific regions, including Australia, in early 2025. Cementir says that its customers can switch to D-Carb from CEM I as it “integrates well with their production processes without requiring major formulation changes.”

In late October 2025 Dyckerhoff revealed that it was the first cement manufacturer in Germany to receive general building authority approval (abZ) for the use of CEM VI (SLL) cement in accordance with DIN EN 197-5. The German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt) granted approval for Dyckerhoff’s Lengerich cement plant. CEM VI is a newer type of composite cement similar to CEM II but with a lower clinker content. The SLL type that Dyckerhoff wants to make has a clinker content of 35 – 49 %, granulated blast furnace slag of 31 – 59% and limestone of 6 – 20%. The company says that this cement can be used in more than 60% of all concrete types produced in ready-mixed concrete plants. Its composition is also useful for low-carbon concretes when no fillers, such as fly ash, are available. Dyckerhoff added that the low hydration heat of the cement has a particularly positive effect in massive cast components.

Earlier in October 2025 Rohrdorfer held an inauguration ceremony for a new pilot unit for calcined (they say tempered) clays at its Rohrdorf cement plant. The pilot project started in July 2025 and has been processing up to 50t/day of raw clay. When Rohrdorfer launched the project in early 2024 it said that it was going to use waste heat from the main production line and was also considering the use of hydrogen to provide the remaining amount of heat required. Waste gases produced during calcination were also going to be fed back into the existing waste gas cleaning system of the clinker production line after leaving the pilot plant to further reduce emissions. Rohrdorfer said that its approach was going to be the first time waste heat recovery was going to be used in conjunction with calcining clay.

Meanwhile, in West Africa, Dangote Cement inaugurated its new 3Mt/yr cement plant near Abidjan in the Ivory Coast in mid-October 2024. Around the same time the company launched various products in the country, including its CEM I and CEM II brands 32.5R, 3X42.5N, 3X42.5R and 52.5N. This is a more traditional range of cement products compared to the ones above but note the highlighting of strength. This has been a key selling point for products in this part of the world previously, hence its focus. CEM II is a blended cement that uses lower levels of clinker. One clinker substitute in CEM II products is calcined clay. Gebr. Pfeiffer, for example, said in August 2025 that it was to supply a vertical roller mill to Ciments de Côte d'Ivoire (CIMCI) for clay grinding at its cement plant. There are also a number of other calcined clay projects in the Ivory Coast and other countries in West Africa. Further afield, JK Cement in India also started to market its LC3 clay calcined cement product line in October 2025.

Finally, US-based Amrize launched its ‘Made in America’ label for its cement range this week, “offering builders the guarantee of American manufacturing and quality, supporting American jobs and local communities.” Readers may recall that Amrize was recently owned by Switzerland-based Holcim. However, the company is currently keen to point out that its cement products are “made in the US from its raw materials and processing to manufacturing, meeting rigorous US performance standards.” Amrize does sell blended cements including FortiCem Portland-Pozzolan Blended Cement, ECOPlanet Cements and OneCem Portland Limestone Cement.

Most of the news stories highlighted above demonstrate a trend for blended cements with lower clinker factors. There’s no real change here. This has been happening for a long time and it is being driven by both profit and sustainability motives, although the current bunch of stories may also be turning up to coincide with the COP30 conference in Brazil. Note the inclusion of places outside of Europe and the drive for new blends. Another factor to consider here is protectionism in certain markets, as Amrize’s marketing drive suggests. New blends will also require new certifications, standards and approvals as is the case with Dyckerhoff’s work on CEM VI (SLL). The next trend to watch for will be the market reaction to carbon captured cements, such as Heidelberg Materials’ evoZero product. Will end users pay a premium for zero-carbon cements?

Germany: Dyckerhoff has received general building authority approval for the use of CEM VI (S-LL) cement produced at its Lengerich plant. The German Institute for Building Technology granted the approval for the plant in October 2025 for almost all exposure classes. It combines clinker, granulated blast furnace slag and limestone to produce cement with a lower CO₂ footprint, low heat of hydration and low effective alkali content.

Egypt: Cementir Group has launched two reduced-CO₂ white cement products produced at its Egyptian subsidiary Sinai White Cement across the Middle East and Africa. The D-Carb® range comprises a limestone Portland cement (matching CEM II/A-LL 52.5N requirements according to EN197-1) with around 10% less clinker than the company’s well-known Aalborg White® CEM I 52.5R product, and a CEM II/B-LL 42.5N product that has 20% less clinker than Aalborg White.

“In 2024 and early 2025, we progressively introduced D-Carb products across Europe and the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, where we have received positive feedback from diverse industry segments,” said Michele Di Marino, Chief Sales, Marketing and Commercial Development Officer of Cementir Group. “Today, extending this portfolio to the Middle East and Africa with two tailored variants represents an important milestone in Cementir’s journey toward net-zero emissions by 2050.”

Greece: Titan Group has entered a strategic partnership with thyssenkrupp Polysius to advance Polysius’ meca clay technology, which aims to reduce CO₂ emissions from cement production. The collaboration was formalised through a memorandum of understanding.

The meca clay system activates alternative cementitious materials to partially replace clinker, thereby lowering emissions and energy use without affecting performance, according to the company. Titan will first implement the technology at its Patras cement plant, with pilot activities scheduled for 2026 and further rollout planned. The partnership targets the production of low-carbon cement with a clinker-to-cement ratio below 40%, compared to 93% in ordinary Portland cement.

Belgium: Etex and Heidelberg Materials have joined forces on CEMLOOP XL, an industrial-scale project co-funded by the EU’s LIFE Programme that aims to revolutionise fibre cement recycling through a fully closed-loop process integrating carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology. According to a press release by Etex, this will reduce CO₂ emissions in cement production by at least 20% and cut energy consumption in the process by 15%.

The project will combine the two companies' expertise to create a fully circular process where waste fibre cement is transformed into high-quality secondary raw material to produce low-carbon cement that will be reused in new fibre cement products. Etex, in collaboration with the Jacobs Group, is developing a recycled fibre cement paste (RFCP) process that converts waste from Etex’s production lines and the wider construction sector into reusable material and avoids landfilling. A new recycling facility in Hemiksem, near Antwerp, is under construction and scheduled for completion by mid-2026.

At Heidelberg Materials’ Lixhe cement plant in Liège, the company is implementing CCLIX, a carbonation process that treats RFCP with CO₂ captured from kiln exhaust gases. This produces carbonated RFCP (cRFCP), which regains cementitious properties and can partially replace clinker in low-carbon cement production. A dedicated carbonation reactor is set to be commissioned at Lixhe by the end of 2028.

Etex says that CEMLOOP XL will prevent 60,000t/yr of fibre cement waste, save 100,000t/yr  of raw limestone, and capture or avoid around 900kg of CO₂ for each tonne of RFCP produced. This process combines utilisation and storage in one step - the captured CO₂ becomes chemically bound within the new product, acting as a permanent CO₂ sink.

Eric Bertrand, chief innovation officer at Etex, said “By 2030, we aim for over 20% of our inputs to come from circular sources and to send zero waste to landfill. Fibre cement plays a central role in this transformation. For the first time, it will follow a fully circular journey - a milestone only made possible through strong partnerships like this with Heidelberg Materials.”

France: Ecocem has inaugurated a new €10m research and innovation centre to advance its low-carbon cement technologies and accelerate industry decarbonisation. The 3300m² facility will focus on developing scalable solutions to reduce reliance on clinker. It will build on Ecocem’s ACT technology, which the company says already enables up to 70% emission reductions, with the aim of providing the cement sector with a pathway to net zero by 2040.

Donal O’Riain, founder and global managing director of Ecocem, said “For 25 years, Ecocem has focused exclusively on low-carbon cement technologies. With ACT, our scalable low carbon cement technology close to commercial availability, the new centre will allow us to go further and faster. We will build on the 18Mt of CO₂ reductions already achieved and accelerate the development of solutions that can deliver net zero cement by 2040, 10 years ahead of schedule.”

France: Lafarge France has signed a nuclear production allocation contract (CAPN) with EDF to secure a long-term supply of low-carbon electricity for its cement plants. The deal allocates part of the capacity from EDF’s operating nuclear fleet to Lafarge France for more than 10 years under a cost and risk-sharing mechanism tied to actual volumes produced.

The partnership aims to cover part of the electricity consumption of Lafarge’s most energy-intensive sites in France, reducing the company’s carbon footprint while ensuring competitiveness and local presence, according to EDF.

Xavier Guesnu, CEO of Lafarge France, said “At Lafarge, we are already activating all levers to reduce the carbon footprint of cement, from research and development to the industrialisation of new low-carbon products and the use of alternative energies, such as biomass. This partnership gives us visibility and access to decarbonised energy, which are essential elements for continuing our investments aimed at large-scale production of very low-carbon or even carbon-neutral cements.”

Ghana: Continental Blue Investment Ghana (CBI) may receive up to US$20m from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for a limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) plant in Tema, according to Ecofin Agency. The US$66.7m project is supported by Société Générale, Norfund and Denmark’s export credit agency EKF, with IFC’s board due to decide on 30 September 2025.

The company said that the facility operates with the ‘world’s largest’ flash calciner, and has a capacity of 400,000t/yr of calcined clay. With the funding, CBI plans to raise output from 600,000t/yr to 1.4Mt/yr, reducing clinker imports and lowering cement prices.

CBI is owned by Swiss holding company F. Scott in a joint venture with Heidelberg Materials, with minority stakes held by Norway and Denmark’s public funds and Danish equipment supplier FLSmidth.

US: Ecocem has obtained ASTM C1157 certification for its ACT low-CO₂ cement technology, confirming it meets or exceeds strength and durability benchmarks while reducing emissions and energy use. Unlike traditional cement specifications, the standard is performance-based, allowing for innovative formulations.

Founder and group managing director Donal O’Riain said “This is a significant moment for Ecocem and for low-carbon cement globally. Over the past 10 years our solutions have seen significant traction across Europe. The US is one of the largest cement markets in the world, and this certification will support integration into existing supply chains and offers a pathway for the sector to rapidly decarbonise through improved efficiency and without increasing costs or complexity.”

Ecocem is advancing its first North American project, a proposed terminal and milling operation at the Port of Los Angeles, aimed at establishing a reliable low-CO₂ cement supply chain in California. The company says that its low-carbon cement technology, ACT, cuts clinker content by up to 70% by using limestone and locally-sourced supplementary cementitious materials. The announcement follows recent regulatory approvals in France, new investment in production lines in Dunkirk, and partnerships with Bouygues, Vinci and Titan Group.

Algeria: The Minister of Industry Sifi Ghrieb has announced a project to build two new low-carbon cement plants in Djelfa and Relizane in central Algeria with a capacity of 1.5Mt/yr and 2Mt/yr respectively, according to Zawya news. An existing cement plant in Djelfa will also see its capacity expanded by 1.5Mt/yr.

The new projects will boost Algeria’s cement capacity to 42Mt/yr. It currently has a cement demand of 30Mt/yr and exports a surplus of 12Mt/yr of cement. Ghrief reportedly discussed plans to expand the Djelfa plant in March 2025 with a delegation from the China State Construction Engineering Corporation. A separate 2Mt/yr low-carbon cement plant, a partnership between local, UAE-based and India-based companies, is also under construction in El Milia, utilising slag and fly ash from a nearby power station and steel complex.