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CO2 mitigation levers and utilisation in the cement industry: Michel Gimenez, LafargeHolcim CIP (France)

Filmed at Cemtech Europe 2015, 20-23 September, Intercontinental Hotel, Vienna, Austria.

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Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for the introduction and for inviting me to make this presentation. So I will make the presentation around, let's say the results we have obtained LafargeHolcim, although in CO2 project let's say, and associated projects. Although, we must admit that this presentation is more based on the legacy of the Lafarge work due to the recent merger, and this is a summary of what we have done let's say over the last 10 years dealing with this topic.

Several speakers have already spoke about the levers, the usual levers of our industry as in hand to reduce the CO2 emissions. I am telling from a number that is also spoken of that. So we'll be short, but we have got roughly three main levers. Although, raw materials could also enter into the picture, but until now we have the addition ratio let's say, the more cement we can produce with a lower clinker content.

So we have several additions, and you see that this lever is very efficient. Clinker production is 830 or 40 kg of CO2 per tone, and then if we look at the final results with all levers like alternative fuels, the control of specific heat consumption, and clinker ratio, clinker to cement ratio, we are ending now at let's say, lower than 600 kg.

So these are all the usual levers we have. Then we can, we had a look to breakthrough levers. Of course, usually people speak of CCS, and has been mentioned already. Nearly 46 or 50% of the CO2 reduction, our industry should produce would come from CCS, so carbon capture and sequestration or storage, geological storage.

We have also several others levers breakthrough with new products, new low CO2 products as compared to Portland. So we have Larfage and LafargeHolcim now, low burning projects like Aehter which is a sulpho, belite sulphoaluminate cement base which could reduce our emissions by 30% as Portland replacement of course, and then we're currently developing a new product, a common table product also called Solidia with a collaboration contract with Solidia company and Lafarge, and LarfageHolcim, and this is a brand new product.

We will go in much more details during the presentation. Then if you want to carbonate, and use CO2, we need CO2, this is obvious of course, but we will see that it's not so simple. Then we see also that high concentrations you do is quite expensive, especially if you want to capture it from diluted sources like the cement Heracles, and stacks.

If you go more into details on the Solidia project and Solidia product, this is a true breakthrough, I can say. This product, new product can substitute Portland in certain applications. For the moment it's precast only and nonstructural, but it can be burnt in the same kilns with our re-kilns[sp?] PF, and in so the process for setting and strength acquisition is not anymore hydration like Portland, or Aether, or sulphoaluminate, but on the contrary carbonation. Meaning the chewing chambers, you can switch from steam in concrete plants to carbonation chewing chambers.

We have already performed two successful trials in this re-production of 5,000 bonds of this new product in North America and Hungary, let's say three months ago. So as I said for the moment the market is restricted to precast and nonstructural. Although, of course we will improve this, and try to enlarge the market. We expect this product to emit 70% CO2 less than Portland, and this is due to the fact that Solidia cement is wollastonite, let's say for people that know the way we speak about oxides, CS, whereas Portland is more or less C3S.

So C is for calcium, and S for silicion, silica, and of course if you bond this, you Calsil this. You know that two-thirds of our CO2 is emitted by calcination of the raw mix, and one-third is linked to combustion. So if you have CS instead of C3S, we have less CO2 from calcination, and then you need also less energy for the calcination. All together, at least let's say -40, -50%. During the production process then, as you are making your concrete, you re-carbonate with 250 kg of CO2 per ton with this new cement. at the end it's resulting to -70%.

Just examples of products that can be made today. A lot of trials have been made in potential precast customers, and went very well. So you see railroad sleepers, concrete blocks etc. So that's what we have today. Then, if you want to carbonate, you need CO2. The precast plants are where they are, the cement plants too, and the CO2 producers also.

Today, the CO2 market in fact is a high-grade CO2 market. The applications is cold, refrigeration, inertisation, fire extinguish etc, and also food and beverages. soap particle absorbent, and whatever, but it's quite expensive, it's very true. There is one great, let's say core most on the market, and the price is, let's say in Europe more than 100 euros, 150 euros depending also on the logistic costs you have. So if you want to use CO2 for mineral carbonation in, let's say cheap products, starts to be a high cost for pavers, pavements etc. So I think the important thing to remember here is that, okay, we can have CO2 applications in CO2, but we need cheap CO2 otherwise will be very difficult to develop the market.

Another remote console that speaking of CO2 applications apart from storage, if it's an application or your work financial recovery, the volumes needed are much lower than the CO2 emitted by our industry or worldwide by the way. So we can expect that in a cement plant emitting one million ton of CO2 per year which is a medium-sized cement plant, maybe once 100,000 tons or 50,000 tons would be usable for other applications than CCS or euro.

So that means that we need to think also to small capture plants, if we want to use CO2 for applications. If we want to store, we need to capture full for sure. If we want to use, maybe it's not the right answer for this question, okay. So now I will speak of the project we've followed up, led on CO2 capture.

Of course we talked by looking at CCS, and the so called post-combustion mono-ethanol amine scrubbing of the C02 in gases. Then we looked at more systems, more integrated in our process. So oxy-combustion, we made a large experimentation with FLSmidth and Air Liquide in Denmark on their pilot plant which was consisting in a retrofit of the normal calciner to oxy-combustion calciner, not the full oxy-combustion retrofit spoken about E-crop project[sp?] and Delbair[sp?] also.

So it was simpler, and we estimated also within the frame of this project, the cost of the retrofit of the rival plant at Lafarge in C02 oxy-combustion. This is the result of the portions we have been patterning with. We tested the MEA solvent solution post-combustion, and we ended up with the cost of 75 Euros per ton of CO2 captured.

I always speak figures CO2 captured because if you want to look at CO2 avoided, you have to add the CO2 that you have emitted with the kilowatts hour you consume, and it's highly region and area dependent, location dependent. France is emitting 100 grams of CO2 per kilowatts hour produced whereas the average value worldwide is 660.

So each one has to make its own conversion. So it's better to speak, in my opinion, on capture cost, and then calculate the, which CO2 is avoided. Second, we have tested or we have studied also the so called DMX solvents patented by IFPEN, the French petroleum institute, and this is led to a lower cost, let's say 50 euros per ton of CO2 captured.

Then oxy-combustion, and then we ended up also with 50 euros per ton. Then we have studied more integrated technology, separate the calcination with two fluidized bed carbon. One combustor, the other one only calciner. So we don't mix the fuel gas for combustion with the one of calcination. So we get pure CO2, but the counterpart is that we're only capturing 50% of the CO2 of the plant.

Should we want to capture all this, should go oxy on the combustor also, and then just straight capture from the fuel gas at the cement plant, and this could end up with, let's say 10, 15 euros per ton in kilowatts, funds addition and dust removal etc. This is our results, okay, here is a table just to remind the applications on CO2, we could envision from the cement industry and from the cement plant. Going from ex-stack emission direct use algae growth, greenhouse, mineral carbonation sometimes because of course the lower ratio to concentration, the lower the kinetics. Then we could have also capture treater power, let's say cycle number two, in order to have a higher temperature, and more integrate the down stream process thermally which could also lead to cost of reduction.

So we could envision also algae growth, greenhouse, maybe some chemicals, question mark, and then we have the concentrated part, more expensive through oxy-combustion, and then post-combustion. Of course we didn't study everything. You can go also calcium looping membrane etc. What we think is that, as I said, low volume needed and high volume for C02 sequestration is a different business model. We didn't find any business model for sequestration and storage only today. It's too expensive, and you have no reward, whereas if you want to go applications you need less C02, and you also, it's nonsense to invest for one million ton capture plant to vent 90% of the CO2, and use only 10.

So, if we want the business for applications to develop, we need to find another model, and maybe partial capture. There are also consequences. If you go partial capture, you cannot go partial oxy. You need to go partial post-combustion. So, that's what I just said, you need to go post-combustion because you can divert 10% of your gas, if you need no more, and then let the other one go to the stack, the other part.

Carbonic in Texas is producing calcium, sodium carbonate, and they capture only 15% of the gases of the plant Capitol Aggregates in Austin, in San Antonio, and they're making sodium bicarbonate, and also hydrochloric acid, and bleach. So they just take the path they want. Second, okay, if we want to produce a second grade CO2, not the very pure one for beverages and today applications, of course we need to make lighter gas produce as people selling gas like Air Liquide, Linde, and all those big companies.

We're able to, the most concentrated sources to have the best price you can for cost. So, of course today it's steam-methane reforming, people producing hydrogen, and also producing CO2. So you, it's already captured this one, and we could also go to bio gas plants making methane and CO2, 50-50 volume, but CO2 is much heavier than methane.

So this could be also an alternate source and deadline[sp?] touches that it could be local one, and not to far from the application site because if you want to go further, you need to purify, to concentrate, to liquefy, and ship which is the full cost, and this is what we want to avoid, in fact.

So the conclusion, entering conclusion I can say on this type of applications is that, we are in the mineral business, we're emitting, we are selling minerals, we're emitting CO2. The best sources for CO2 capture may not be the cement planting itself, but other sources more, located in several areas, and because we have seen that capturing C02 in a cement plant is quite expensive anyway for the moment, and then I didn't speak, I'm sorry, about carbonate, but it's also a process using CO2 to carbonate, let's say fly ash oil, calcium-rich fly ash, and making aggregates which is also a solution for carbonation, and one to recall also that, to remind that logistic cost is critical either for CO2 of course, and also for the cement issues product we're selling for the application.

I just want to say also that LafargeHolcim is a member company of the CSI, and also working on the low carbon partnership intiative. Thank you very much.

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