EU supports first climate-neutral cement plant
The European Union (EU) is financing Holcim’s Carbon2Business innovation project in Lägerdorf (Schleswig-Holstein) with €109.8 million. On 19 January, Thorsten Hahn, CEO of Holcim Germany, officially received the grant certificate in Brussels. The money will be used to build a new oven line. As an industrial-scale prototype for decarbonising cement production, the kiln uses a new oxyfuel process technology with a CO2 compression and purification unit. According to Holcim, the new production unit is an important step towards the first climate-neutral cement plant.
The Carbon2Business project is one of two projects in Germany and seventeen projects that the EU is financing with €1.8 billion from the innovation fund.
In the oxyfuel process, pure oxygen is fed into the combustion process of the cement kiln instead of ambient air. The required oxygen comes from projects were hydrogen and oxygen are split using electricity from renewable energy sources. The result of the oxyfuel process in the cement kiln is pure CO2, which is separated and then converted into methanol or processed into raw material for the chemical industry. According to Holcim, the new process can avoid emissions of 1.2 million tons of CO2 per year at the Lägerdorf site alone.
C2B climate neutral cement factory Holcim Lägerdorf
Gray: Existing, Blue: New Oxyfuel Line, Yellow: CO2 Capture – CPU, Green: Air Separation Unit
