High-tech in cement production reduces the emissions of CO2

The production of cement generates about 5 percent of the global emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is not a figure to make anyone proud and the main manufacturers of the main bulk material for concrete are working hard to modify this negative scenario. Two recent cases—one in the United States and other in Norway—show how technology is an important support to achieve this target. In the first example, the American company Skyonic, expert in carbon capture installed an effective operation in the cement plant of Capitol Aggregates located in San Antonio, Texas. The plant of Norcem Brevik, located in the South of Oslo, is testing alternatives such as amine debugging to remove 30 to 40 percent of the gases generated in the European industrial unit.

North-American initiative joins two realities: a traditional plant for cement production, property of a corporation (Capitol Aggregrates)—that produces several types of inputs for civil construction market—and a high-tech company, Skyonic, whose focus is to make profit with the CO2. The result of the union of these two different worlds was the activation of a production unit that captures approximately 83,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide that come from the cement plant and transforms them in sodium bicarbonate and hydrochloric acid. The process is simple, since the CO2 that comes from the plant replaces mineral deposits that would be the basic rough materials to manufacture both products now obtained through the technology patented by Skyonic.

The innovative shot of the American company, carbon reuse, is pointed as a type of “Holy Grail” by the consultant of Global CSS Institute Victor K Der. This is a non-profit organization that encourages this type of action. The expert was employee in the Department of Energy of the U.S. Government and remembers that cement plants are virtually free sources of carbon dioxide but points out that the efficiency of new technologies for its recovery depends on the dimension of the market for products generated from CO2 processing. A remembered example is gas pumping in oil wells to improve fuel removal. “This is an area that demands too little CO2 in relation to the amount produced in the world”, says the expert in an interview given to The New York Times last October.

In the other side of the world, another cement plant is also doing its homework. The target of Norcem Brevik is to remove at least 30 percent of the carbon dioxide generated in its plant. In this case, the technology involves the residual heat of the plant combined with amine to remove gases produced in the combustion. In a statement given to the Technology Review of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), the manager of the Norwegian project, Liv-Margrethe Bjerge, was emphatic. "I believe that we are the first project to test this technology in real conditions of cement manufacturing ", said her. And added: "This is the sole cement project that makes post-combustion capture ".

The activation in large scale of the actions carried out as test till October, 2014 will start till the end of the first half of this year.