Pilot production of 100% circular, CO2-free, fossil-free cement

Swedish CemVision has completed largescale pilot production of fossil-free cement.

The results indicate huge reductions in the cement industry’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Swedish tech company Cemvision, which develops technology for the production of environmentally friendly cement, has now produced large-scale volumes of fossil-free cement based entirely on recycled materials from primarily the mining and steel industries. The result enables the production of what is potentially the market’s most climate-friendly cement. The cement industry accounts for 8 percent of global emissions, an estimated 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, a figure that can be quickly reduced with the help of Cemvision’s technology.

Cemvision has produced fossil-free cement in its pilot plant, which has a capacity of several hundred tons per year. Test production is now moving to the company’s demo facility, with an annual capacity of several thousand tons of cement. In the following step, Cemvision invites collaborations to scale up production to hundreds of thousands of tons and, with it, almost as large savings in carbon dioxide emissions.

- We are a climate-first company making high-performance cement. With our competence and experience, it is our duty to produce the most environmentally friendly cement for each application to help in the battle against climate change, says Claes Kollberg, co-founder and CTO, Cemvision.

According to Cemvision’s method, the solution for fossil-free cement is to let other industries’ residual materials become high-value raw materials, which is both resource-efficient and means that carbon dioxide emissions are completely avoided. Manufacturing cement also requires high temperatures to process the raw materials. Cemvision’s solution enables the use of green electricity instead of coal or other fossil energy sources that the industry uses today. Thanks to raw materials other than limestone, the total energy consumption in Cemvision’s production is also significantly lower than in traditional cement production.

Cemvision’s cement can be used as a drop-in product to help traditional cement manufacturer reduce their carbon footprint, or used as a stand-alone cement product
to replace traditional cement and consequently provide a completely fossil-free alternative.

- The cement industry’s climate impact is a huge global problem. In the short term, there is no alternative to replace the world’s need for cement, the main ingredient in concrete and the world’s most used building material. Instead, we have now proven that it is possible to produce cement with new methods and other raw materials, by successfully producing large volumes of cement with minimal emissions, says Oscar Hållén, CEO of Cemvision.

large-scaleTest results from the large scale pilot production show both cost and performance benefits. The product’s properties show early high-strength development, which can enable faster and new ways of building. It also means that the amount of cement can be reduced in concrete constructions which also affects the industry’s emissions.