Displaying items by tag: Finland

Finland: Saint-Gobain and steel company SSAB are building a new slag processing plant in Raahe in North Ostrobothnia. When commissioned in 2025, the plant will convert SSAB’s steel slag into 90% reduced-CO₂ binders to replace cement in building materials. The partners aim to reduce the CO₂ emissions of Finnish building materials production by 200,000t/yr. Saint-Gobain first patent a slag-based binder design in 2022.

Saint-Gobain will invest €12m and SSAB €2m towards the cost of the plant, which will be 35% funded by Sustainable Growth Finland, under the NextGeneration EU initiative.

Finland: Betolar has procured a patent for a new accelerator solution for use in CEM III/B slag cement mixes. The company says that the product enables the achievement of conventional demoulding times in the production of concrete elements using slag cement with a clinker content of 20 – 34%. It will also enable its use in hollow-core slabs and as shotcrete in the mining industry.

President and CEO Tuija Kalpala said "Our patented innovation paves the way for the large-scale use of cement mixtures in the production of concrete elements and products, significantly reducing CO₂ emissions."

Finland: Boliden says it has a developed a 95% reduced-CO₂ alternative cement production process based on the use of slag. Nordic Daily News has reported that the process has received verification from ‘established players in the cement industry.’ A preliminary study is underway, wherein Boliden will establish a 250,000t/yr production plant. Additionally, the process extracts usable metal from slag.

Finland: Betolar has signed a cooperation agreement with concrete producer Consolis Parma to develop reduced-CO₂ hollow concrete slabs. The development process will implement Betolar's Geoprime binder into Consolis Parma's concrete production. Consolis Parma is committed to halving its CO₂ emissions between 2021 and 2035.

Consolis Parma's Technology Director Juha Rämö said “The use of alternative new binder combinations and additives that ensure the efficiency of the manufacturing process are key factors in achieving our climate goals. We are actively seeking new channels to address these challenges. The cooperation with Betolar is an important new partnership for us."

Finland: VTT Technical Research Centre subsidiary Carbonaide has concluded its seed funding round, having raised funds worth Euro1.8m. Lakan Betoni, which produces precast and ready-mix concrete, led the funding, along with utilities provider Vantaa Energy. Carbonaide will use the funds to build an industrial pilot plant for its carbon neutral precast concrete product at an existing precast concrete plant in Hollola. The plant will bind captured CO₂ in the product at atmospheric pressure. The process generates 50% lower CO₂ emissions than precast concrete production using ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Suitable raw materials include ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), green liquor dregs and bio-ash. In trial production, the use of GGBFS gave Carbonaide's concrete a negative carbon footprint of -60kg/m³.

Other sources of loans and in-kind contributions included Finnish state innovation fund Business Finland.

Finland: Betolar has signed a letter of intent with Australia-based RISAB and the Vanadium Recovery Project to research the use of slag ‘purified from vanadium’ in concrete production. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that the company says that, through it Geoprime alkali-activated additive technology, the new slag source could replace 10% of the cement used in concrete production in Finland.

CEO Matti Löppönen said "We see a huge opportunity for Betolar here. If successful, we would be able to offer our customers a specific, currently unused slag of the steel industry to replace cement in concrete. Our customers already have experience in utilising other types of slag in the production of concrete using Geoprime. Utilising new side streams will expand the reach of our solution as planned.”

Betolar launched Geoprime in September 2021. It is currently developing a recipe-optimising artificial intelligence (AI) and data platform to bring together concrete producers and alternative raw material suppliers.

Finland: Betolar has launched Geoprime, an alkali-activated additive for slag and fly ash used in concrete production. The company says that the product will enable concrete production from raw materials with 80% lower CO₂ than ordinary Portland cement (OPC). It aims to meet the growing demand for sustainable and cost-effective construction materials. Geoprime enjoys fast global scaling potential thanks to Betolar’s intellectual property licensing business model, which enables the use of existing production facilities, according to the company.

Chief executive offcier Matti Löppönen said “We have seen a massive shift in the concrete manufacturing and construction industries driven by investor pressure for environmental, social and governance data transparency and Net Zero commitments, and now people are keen to hear what we have to offer.”

Finland/Germany: Finnsementti’s second grinding unit at its Raahe Slag Plant will be a Pfeiffer MVR 1800 C-4. The unit consists of four rollers with a total slag grinding capacity of 0.2Mt/yr. During maintenance, it is able to keep working at 60% capacity. Gebr. Pfeiffer has stated that the plant will be commissioned in the third quarter of 2020.

Finland: Finnsementti has installed a second mill at its Raahe grinding plant, increasing its total capacity by 100% to 1.0Mt/yr. Esmerk has reported that the mill will grind only slag, which will replace other clinker ingredients in its cement to a net carbon footprint reduction of 40,000Mt/yr. The company has stated that ‘a significant part’ of its Euro12m investment in the upgrade will go towards dosing equipment and increasing storage capacity, with a special emphasis on maintaining a circular economy and reaching its environmental goals by reducing the net CO₂ emissions of its Raahe plant.

Italy: Finland’s Tapojärvi has signed a contract to supply slag handling and metal recovery services at ThyssenKrupp’s Acciai Speciali Terni steel mill. Tapojärvi Italia will build a slag-handling unit and then start to produce and develop slag-based products. The contract consists of two-year period of building the unit and 10 years of operating time with additional option for another 10 years of operations.

“We have innovative and cost efficient solutions to meet the challenges steel mills have around the world. We productise industrial by-products and develop new business opportunities around these materials all the time,” said Mari Pilventö, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tapojärvi Oy.