Displaying items by tag: pilot

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: 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.

India: Three new Indian concrete companies have separately secured agreements for the use of Finland-based Betolar’s Geoprime alkali-activated slag and fly ash additive. Reuters News has reported that the companies are Balaiji Cement Products, Shiv Tiles and SNEH Precast. Engineering company Godrej & Boyce has also signed a letter of intent with the supplier for pilot production of concrete blocks, paving slabs and other elements.

Betolar expects producers to achieve global concrete production volumes of 250,000t/yr of concrete containing Geoprime by 2023.

Russia: The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) MISiS and Vtoraluminprodukt have launched a pilot installation of a bubbling reactor, using the gas flushing principle, in Mtsensk, Oryol Region on 18 December 2018. The concept is intended to fully process industrial waste, slags and sludge, as well as carbon-containing wastes, including municipal solid waste (MSW) and efficient and environmentally-friendly production of iron and concentrate non-ferrous metals. NUST MISiS says that the furnace is the world's only metallurgical furnace capable of processing iron-containing industrial waste as well as solid waste, simultaneously smelting up to 16,000t/yr of metal and producing electricity.

"The advantage of this technology is that it is non-waste and allows for simple, reliable and environmentally-friendly purification of the exhaust gases. And it also allows combining the processing of metallurgical waste, coal preparation factories and municipal waste of enterprises or settlements that are heated with coal. It is a sort of a universal technology," said Nikolay Shenchenko, member of the Expert Mining Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation for industry and innovation and the chief executive officer (CEO) of Resmet.

Gennadiy Podgorodetskiy, team leader and director of the Innovative Metallurgical Technology Scientific and Educational Centre, said that the slag composition from the pilot furnace can be selected for further processing into slag stone products, thermal insulation slag or be used to make slag cement products.

Qatar: The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), the British Transport Research Institute (TRL), Qatar Steel and Ashghal have been running a pilot project to use steel slag in the construction sector including to build roads. The test is part of the country’s infrastructure development in the lead up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, according to the Gulf Times. Qatar Steel has accumulated large quantities of steel slag from its plant in Mesaieed. It produces over 350,000t/yr and has a stockpile of over 1.6Mt.

Slag road construction trials were conducted at a Qatar Steel site in 2016. The TRL has since recommended production of slag aggregate, certification of slag products by the authorities including MME and Ashghal, development of case studies and the inclusion in the next update to the Qatar construction specification.