Displaying items by tag: pilot

Germany: The Catch4Climate project has moved into the planning stage of its oxyfuel pilot plant at the Mergelstetten cement plant. The group, comprising Buzzi Unicem’s subsidiary Dyckerhoff, HeidelbergCement, Schwenk Zement and Vicat, signed a letter of intent with the state’s prime minister and transport minister in Stuttgart in mid-November 2020.

The consortium intends to build and operate its own demonstration plant on a semi-industrial scale, to use the oxyfuel process to capture CO₂. In the future, the captured CO₂ will be used to produce so-called ‘reFuels’, climate-neutral synthetic fuels such as kerosene for air traffic, with the help of renewable electrical energy.

The cement producers formed CI4C – Cement Innovation for Climate in late 2019. The aim of the Catch4Climate project is to create the basis for a large-scale application of CO₂ capture technologies in cement plants enabling the later use of CO₂ as a raw material in other processes such as a carbon capture and utilisation/storage.

Italy: The pilot plant for the Cleanker project was inaugurated at Buzzi Unicem’s Vernasca cement plant in early October 2020. The purpose of the calcium looping technology project is to demonstrate a technology for capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) in cement plants. Tests will be run for around 10 months with a total actual operating time of one month at most.

Mexico: Cemex has announced the signing of a collaboration agreement with Switzerland-based alternative fuel (AF) specialist Synhelion, through which the pair aim to develop the use of solar power as an alternative heat source to fuel in clinker production. Pilot testing of Synhelion products will begin at a Cemex plant in late 2022, at a total investment cost of up to US$10m.

Head of global research and development Davide Zampini said, "Thanks to the technology that Synhelion is developing, we can bring the solar heat up to 1500°C. In the process, we can also capture the carbon dioxide (CO₂), and that fits perfectly into the process of the synthetic fuel."

Mexico: Cemex subsidiary Cemex Ventures has signed an agreement with US-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) specialist Carbon Clean for the development of a CCS solution for under US$30/t of carbon dioxide (CO₂) captured. Cemex cement plants will host the products during pilot testing. Cemex Ventures head Gonzalo Galindo said, “The ambitious target of making carbon capture technology accessible and more efficient would be an unprecedented achievement for the cement sector, opening a door of opportunities for further developments.”

Germany: Schwenk Zement has announced plans for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from cement kiln CO₂ emissions. The World Ethanol and Biofuels Report has reported that Schwenk Zement’s integrated 1.0Mt/yr Allmendingen, Baden-Württemberg plant will receive a pilot SAF plant in late 2020.

Norway: Private accreditation body DNVGL has certified Aker Solutions’ 400,000t/yr carbon capture and storage (CCS) system installation at Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Norcem’s 1.2Mt/yr integrated Brevik plant in Telemark as safe. HeidelbergCement Northern Europe director of sustainability and alternative fuels Per Brevik said, “The promising results from pilot testing in Brevik give us confidence that realisation of the full-scale capture plant will be successful. We trust that the project risk related to novel technology elements is low.”

Following an 18-month test of the partial installation, the certification ensures that the full-scale project will receive government funding.

Germany: Hydraulic calcium hydrosilicate (hCHS)-based cement producer Celitement has gone from being a Schwenk-affiliated company to a full subsidiary of the 5.76Mt/yr integrated capacity cement producer. Celitement plans to upgrade its pilot plant at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Baden-Württemberg, to increase production capacity. When this is completed, it will offer ‘single-digit tonne’ deliveries to ‘select investors’ and begin ‘large-scale practical testing.’ These will determine the feasibility of establishing an industrial Celitement plant.

Celitement was set up in 2009 to develop novel construction materials based on several patents for hCHS binding agents.

Germany: Currax and Siemens have announced their collaboration on a mill operations digitisation pilot project involving the Simotics Connect 400 motor data collector and transmitter. They hope that analysis of data processed via the Simotics 400 will better enable the remote operating of mills ‘to increase efficiency and component life’ and speeding the shift towards automation and production that is resilient to crises such as the coronavirus outbreak.

Vietnam: 20 factories in Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa, Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue provinces will be subject to a new carbon tax in a pilot project. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has started to put the programme into action following approval from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, according to the Vietnam News Agency Bulletin. The pilot project will start in 2020 and run until the end of 2021.

The scheme will include 11 cement companies and nine power plants. Cement producers and traders will be charged US$0.09/t of clinker, equivalent to US1.35/t of CO₂. The tax will also increase electricity costs for cement producers. It is expected to increase the production cost at plants by 0.29%.

Nguyen Van Vu, head of Finance and Planning Department under Vietnam Administration of Forestry (VAF), said that the tariff was lower than the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility pledge to pay for emission reduction efforts in North Central Region of US$5/t of CO2. The provinces running the tariff are expected to generate around US$7.4m/yr. Most of this revenue will be accrued in Quang Ninh, followed by Thanh Hoa, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam.

Belgium: Australia’s Calix says the Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC) consortium has successfully demonstrated CO₂ separation with more than 95% purity at its pilot unit at HeidelbergCement’s cement plant in Lixhe. Technology provider Calix said that preliminary test runs have been completed on the pilot. The technology concept has been shown to work on both lime and cement meal, with calcination near to target levels and high purity CO₂ successfully separated at the top of the reactor although not yet at full design capacity.

It added that it was still working on fixing commissioning issues. Testing will run until the end of 2020 to assess the risk of potential longer-term issues such as tube health and process robustness. In parallel, planning has commenced on the next scale-up of the technology, including conceptual design and engaging funding consortia.