Displaying items by tag: secondary cementitious materials

UK: Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC) has launched the two-year trial of its Cement 2 Zero project, aimed at scaling up production of its net zero-CO₂, demolition waste-based alternative cement. It aims to produce 20t of the material for use in a low-impact construction project. CEC’s method, developed at the University of Cambridge, is based on the conversion of demolition waste into a slag-forming material within a steel furnace.

Developer Julian Allwood said “By combining steel and cement recycling in a single process powered by renewable electricity, we could supplement the global supply of the basic construction materials to support the infrastructure of a zero emissions world and to enable economic development where it is most needed.”

US: Purebase and Fortera have signed a non-binding agreement to build a commercial plant at Purebase’s headquarters in Ione, California. The companies are working towards a definitive agreement to build a plant using Fortera proprietary recarbonation process that uses captured CO₂ and mineralises it into a secondary cementitious material.

Scott Dockter, the chairman, and chief executive officer of Purebase, said, “We believe that a strategic partnership with Fortera would put Purebase on a fast-track to bring a lower carbon product to market.” He added, “We believe Fortera has developed a unique solution to reduce carbon emissions in cement, and it will have the advantage of using Purebase’s mineral resources and location in Ione, California which is ideally located in northern California near major ports which can effectively serve the western-US markets and abroad.”

Purebase acquires, develops, and markets minerals for use in agriculture, construction, and other specialty industries.

A trio of slag cement stories have been in the sector news this week with reports from Australia, France and Sri Lanka. Of note from the first two reports is a focus on supplies of slag.

The first concerns Hallett Group’s US$80m supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) project in South Australia. This will see the company process slag and fly ash sourced from sites in the region to manufacture blended cement products and standalone SCMs. These will be principally milled, blended and distributed from a site at Port Augusta. However, an additional distribution site at Port Adelaide is also planned that can both import and export the company’s products in a bid to cut down on supply chain risk, particular for its mining customers. The company says it will replace up to 1.15Mt/yr of cement when fully operational, although initial production looks set to be about a third of this based on local media reports. Commissioning of the Port Adelaide distribution hub is scheduled for May 2023, following by the Whyalla Granulator in January 2024 and the Port Augusta processing plant in June 2024. Pointedly, Hallett Group is explicit about where is plans to source its SCMs from: Nyrstar Port Pirie and, potentially, Liberty GFG.

The second slag-themed story hails from France, where Hoffmann Green Cement has acquired ABC Broyage, which operates a slag grinding plant in North Dordogne. Like the project in Australia above, Hoffmann Green is focused on its supply chain. With this acquisition it will be able to grind its own blast furnace slag instead of buying it. Raw blast furnace slag will be imported via the port of La Rochelle where the company has storage silos. It will then be ground at the former ABC Broyage site and sent on to Hoffmann Green’s H1 and H2 production sites, located at Bournezeau in the Vendée region. Finally it will use it to manufacture its H-UKR and H-IONA cement products. There is no mention of how much the acquisition is costing Hoffman Green. Instead the emphasis, according to company founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann, is very much to, “strengthen our control over our supply and secure our margins in the current highly inflationary context.”

Finally, the week’s third slag-themed cement story is from Sri Lanka, where local media reports that Insee Cement has started producing Portland Composite Cement, using SCMs such as slag, at its Ruhunu grinding plant. This story follows the trend of cement producers around the world switching to greater usage of blended cements, often for sustainability reasons. Unfortunately, political events in Sri Lanka are overshadowing everything else locally, with the president having fled amid social unrest provoked by the ongoing and severe economic crisis. To this end Insee Cement has astutely also donated medical supplies this week to the intensive care unit at the Colombo National Hospital.

These slag stories are important for the cement sector can be demonstrated by a recent update to the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo’s (CICERO) research on global CO₂ emissions from cement production. When it published its estimate for 2021 it found that overall emissions were 2.6Bnt in 2021 or just over 7% of the world’s total CO₂ output. What is worse though, is that its data suggests that cement-based emissions have steadily grown year-on-year from 1.2Bnt in 2002. Apart from a dip in 2015 they have kept on rising! This can mostly be attributed to the growth of the Chinese cement industry in the early 2000s suggesting that a tipping point may be reached in the current decade as lowering cement production CO₂ intensity finally kicks in.

Slag and other SCM-based blended cements fit in here as they are one of the ‘easiest’ ways to reduce the clinker factor of cement and concrete and thereby reduce the sector’s CO₂ levels. Hence they keep popping up on the various roadmaps and reports for the cement industry to reach net zero. The flipside of this however is that slag is becoming harder to source as the demand for granulated blast furnace slag increases and less new steel plants get built, especially in North America and Europe. Hence the focus on the supply of slag in the first two news stories above. Blended cements may be the future but getting there will be far from simple.

Canada: Progressive Planet Solutions has appointed Ian Grant as its chief operating officer. He has been promoted from Vice President of Business Development. In his new role Grant will work with chief executive officer Steve Harpur to oversee operations and development of its micronised mineral technologies in addition to supporting the growth of the company's current business.

In May 2022 Progressive Planet completed the acquisition and integration of Absorbent Products and the expansion of its regenerative fertiliser operations. It also changed the name of its new subsidiary to Progressive Planet Products. As part of his work on the company's plan, Grant will be managing the shutdown of the seasonal regenerative fertiliser pilot plant in Spallumcheen by moving key equipment to expand the full commercial plant in Kamloops. Grant will be based at the company’s new joint head office for Progressive Planet Solutions and Progressive Planet Products in Kamloops.

Progressive Planet sells products with sustainable benefits to the agricultural, construction and industrial sectors including micronised minerals such as a proprietary supplementary cementing material made from recycled glass.

Switzerland: The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has informed policymakers that the best current route to reduce carbon emissions from cement production is through the increased use secondary cementitious materials and by encouraging the development and uptake of carbon capture. Alternatively, the development of new chemistries for building materials could help the situation but this is not expected in the short to medium term.

The report noted that 12Gt of CO₂ equivalent was released directly and indirectly in 2019 from buildings and emissions from cement and steel use for building construction and renovation. These emissions included indirect emissions from offsite generation of electricity and heat, direct emissions produced onsite and emissions from cement and steel used for building construction and renovation. In sections of the IPCC report yet to be finally approved the authors said, “Cement and concrete are currently overused because they are inexpensive, durable, and ubiquitous, and consumption decisions typically do not give weight to their production emissions.”

Overall, the report concluded that average annual global greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 to 2019 were at their highest levels in human history but the rate of growth had slowed. The IPCC has called on “immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors” for any chance for society to limit global warming to 1.5°C. To do this global greenhouse gas emissions would have to peak before 2025 at the latest and be reduced by 43% by 2030. However, even if this did occur, it would take until the end of the 21st century for the temperature threshold to be stabilised.

Philippines: Big Boss Cement has reportedly suspended business operations until 2022. An unnamed source at the company quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper said that the company is ‘rehabilitating’ its facilities. It added that the company is using a lull in business to make changes.

The company was set up by SM Group heir Henry Sy Jr in 2018. It opened a grinding plant at Porac in Pampanga, Luzon in 2018 and commissioned a third mill at the site in late 2020. Notably the unit manufactures its own secondary cementitious material, which it calls Granulated Activated Sand by Heating, as well as importing clinker and other raw materials.

Canada: Progressive Planet Solutions has appointed Randy Gue and Chris Halsey-Brandt to its advisory board. The company is developing pozzolan-based supplementary cementitious material (SCM) products. It operates its Z1 Zeolite quarry in Cache Creek, British Columbia and is working on other projects also in the province.

Gue will advise on introducing Progressive Planet's developing products into the marketplace with the initial focus on markets for PozGlass SCM. Randy spent 17 years with Lafarge Canada as the Director of Business Development and Resource Recovery where he led Lafarge's Western North American initiative to reduce variable operating costs by developing business-to-business relationships primarily related to the recovery and reuse of wastes and by-product streams from industries and institutions.

Halsey-Brandt will assist in financial analysis of the first PozGlass SCM manufacturing plant and will also assist in evaluating opportunities to grow the company through strategic acquisitions. He is both a chartered professional accountant (CPA) and a chartered business valuator (CBV). At present Halsey-Brandt owns and operates a successful food processing business. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he was a partner at Blair Mackay Mynett Valuations, an independent firm in Vancouver providing business valuation services.

US: Solidia Technologies has filed a patent for a new hydraulic cement consisting of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and other supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) including lime, alkali hydroxides, clay minerals and over 10% synthetic pozzolan.

Solidia Technologies said, “In order to reduce global CO₂ emissions it is necessary to adopt new approaches to create a new generation of hydraulic cements. The most efficient cement kiln can produce OPC clinker with an associated emission of 816 kg of CO₂/t. Blending the ground cement clinker with SCM, which have low or zero associated production CO2 emissions, reduces the total embodied CO₂ of the final product. Using a cement with the lowest possible clinker factor for a given application is the most common industry approach to reducing the CO₂ footprint of concrete.”

US: Charah Solutions plans to open a grinding plant to make supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) from natural pozzolan at Oxnard in California. The unit will be accessible by truck and railway. It will sell pozzolan and other materials to concrete product manufacturers throughout south California.

The Oxnard plant will be operated in partnership with Diversified Minerals, a supplier and manufacturer of standard and custom blend cement and concrete products. It will receive natural pozzolan by truck and rail and then grind pozzolan marketed under the brand MultiPozz pozzolan. MultiPozz pozzolan will be distributed throughout Charah Solutions’ MultiSource materials network of more than 40 nationwide in the US with international sourcing and distribution.

“Fly ash is becoming more difficult to source in California, which is forcing the construction industry to look for viable alternatives. Natural pozzolan and other SCMs that meet ASTM specifications are generating very high interest. With Charah Solutions’ resources and DMI’s strategic partnership with the only active pozzolan mine in Southern California, we are both the closest and the first to bring these products to market,” said Jim Price, chief executive officer (CEO) of Diversified Minerals.

The US government proposed placing tariffs on cement this week as part of its slowly-escalating trade war against China. The latest list will face a 10% tariff from the end of August 2018 following a consultation period. Of relevance to the cement industry, it will include limestone flux, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, anhydrite, clinkers of Portland, aluminous, slag, supersulfate and similar hydraulic cements, white Portland cement, Portland cement, aluminous cement, slag cement, refractory cements, additives for cement, cement based building materials and more.

Graph 1: Imports of hydraulic cement and clinker to the US from China, 2012 – 2017. Source: United States Geologic Survey (USGS).

Graph 2: Major exporters of hydraulic cement and clinker (Mt) to the US in 2017. Source: United States Geologic Survey (USGS).

At face value it seems unlikely that the tariffs will do much direct damage to the cement sectors in either China or the US. United States Geological Survey (USGS) data reports that the US imported 2Mt of cement and clinker from China in 2017 out of a total of 13.6Mt of imports. China was the third-largest exporter of cement to the US after Canada and Greece. Given the mammoth size of the Chinese cement industry - it sold 2.3Bnt in 2017 according to National Bureau of Statistics of China - it is unlikely that losing this export stream will cause the sector to lose much sleep. If the exports are coming from smaller producers though it might well impact upon them disproportionally. Any potential shortfall in the US is likely to be met by any number of the world’s overproducing cement nations. Vietnam, Iran (!) and Indonesia are the first few candidates that spring to mind.

The other point to consider from the USGS data is that the value of the cement imported from China in 2017 was on the cheaper side. Altogether the value of Chinese imported cement came to US$132m in 2017. Yet it was the fifth cheapest for cost, insurance and freight per tonne out of 32 importing countries. Add a 10% tariff to that and it is still only the eighth cheapest. If these figures represent reality then it seems unlikely that tariffs will cause the Chinese imports to slow down much.

All of this pretty much fits the general impression of China as a country that produces the most cement in the world but it actually exports very little of it. Consultancies like Ad and Marcia Ligthart’s Cement Distribution Consultants have made a point of downplaying China’s export market in recent years due to a lack of deep water terminals for plants and a general inward focus. Yet the sheer amount of production capacity could have big implications if it ever does get properly connected to the sea.

Other products facing the new tariffs that have relevance for the cement industry include input materials like gypsum or secondary cementitious materials (SCM) like slag and fly ash. Gypsum isn’t likely to be a concern given the presence of established exporters in Canada, Spain, Thailand, Oman and the like. SCMs are more mercurial but don’t appear to be too intrinsic to the US market. Ferrous slag imports grew to 2Mt in 2015 according to USGS data but the main sources were Japan, Canada, Spain and Germany. Charles Zeynel of ZAG International at the Global Slag Conference 2018 posited that Chinese exports comprised up to 6Mt or 25% of the world market of traded international slag.

All of this suggests a symbolic nature to the US tariffs on Chinese cement and related products. Perhaps the real news story to have noted this week was the framework agreement signed between Denmark’s FLSmidth and China’s China National Building Material (CNBM), the world’s largest cement producer and one of its larger cement equipment manufacturers.

Typically many of the new cement plant projects Global Cement has reported upon recently involve a Chinese contractor that may or may not be using European engineering from companies like FLSmidth who previously would have been managing the build themselves. The point here is that new plants, production lines and upgrades at US cement plants might well be built by a Chinese company through its European partners. The new upgrade to Lehigh Hanson’s Mitchell plant in Indiana has been budgeted at US$600m. This is far more than the value of Chinese cement imported into the US in 2017.