Cemex and Synhelion have announced the successful production of solar clinker, the key component of cement, a significant step towards developing fully solar-driven cement plants.
"The production of the first solar clinker is an exciting milestone for this transformational technology. It is proof of our commitment to deliver tangible outcomes through innovation to achieve our goal of delivering only net-zero CO2 concrete by 2050," said Fernando A. Gonzalez, CEO of Cemex. "Cemex is building a better future, and that future must be sustainable."
The Synhelion and Cemex R&D teams set up a pilot batch production unit to produce clinker from concentrated solar radiation by connecting the clinker production process with the Synhelion solar receiver. The pilot was installed at the Very High Concentration Solar Tower of IMDEA Energy, located near Madrid, Spain. Synhelion’s solar receiver delivers record-breaking temperatures reaching beyond 1500°C. The solar receiver heats a gaseous heat transfer fluid and thus provides the necessary process heat for clinker production.
"Our technology converts concentrated sunlight into the hottest existing solar process heat, beyond 1500°C, on the market," said Dr Gianluca Ambrosetti, CEO and co-founder of Synhelion. "We are proud to demonstrate together with Cemex one specific industrially relevant application of our fully renewable, high-temperature solar heat."
The pilot is the first successful calcination and, more importantly, the first successful clinkerisation ever achieved using only solar energy. The clinker was used to produce cement and was then further processed to produce concrete. In the next phase of their joint research and development project, Cemex and Synhelion aim to produce solar clinker in larger quantities as they work towards an industrial-scale pilot at a cement plant.
Synhelion’s solar receiver can be seen in the right aperture of the solar tower while the sunlight
is being focussed onto the calorimeter in the left aperture. Source: Synhelion
