Novel Cements For Low Energy and Low Emission
Novel Cements For Low Energy and Low Emission
Novel Cements For Low Energy and Low Emission
Part of the industry's contribution to sustainability is the recognition that it must evaluate the
viability of potential alternatives to Portland cement CEM I, the fundamental ingredient needed
to produce traditional concretes.
embody less energy than traditional Portland cements, including those that contain
additional inorganic/mineral constituents;
be manufactured using a novel process that ideally utilises waste-derived fuels and
raw materials;
be expected to reduce both waste and emissions, in particular the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide.
This Fact Sheet examines five of the more interesting novel cement types and reviews their
prospects for manufacture and acceptance in the UK. They are either already in production in
some part of the world or under development and can fulfil the above characteristics to varying
degrees. They are:
For a fuller discussion of the scientific and societal issues involved in developing new cements,
see Gartner [8].
Clearly, since a fundamental aspect of sustainability must be durability, any new cement will
also have to have performance and durability characteristics at least as good as the current
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generation of Portland cements and probably even better, since it is likely to be initially more
expensive, if it is to have any real impact on global construction industry-related CO2 emissions.
Simply put, it is the geological availability and global distribution of suitable natural resources,
coupled with the extensive validation needed to confirm fitness-for-purpose, that are the
critical factors that will determine if any cement is a realistic alternative to Portland cement.
What 'end-use' barriers will a novel cement have to overcome to become a realistic
alternative to Portland cements?
The construction sector is often perceived to be conservative in its attitude to new ideas,
products and processes. Such an attitude arises from moral and legal obligations on architects,
design engineers and regulatory authorities to minimise the risk of structural failure in order to
safeguard society. Innovators, however, will experience this conservatism and its associated
demands as a considerable barrier and may believe it has been raised simply to frustrate their
objectives.
Establishing fitness-for-purpose for any cement, whether described as novel, alternative, non-
Portland, low energy/low carbon, green, eco or otherwise; is neither a simple nor a linear
undertaking and the more unfamiliar the cement type the more exacting will be the validation
process. Justifiably, all stakeholders expect buildings and the infrastructure to be safe, long-
lasting and without need of excessive maintenance.
Undoubtedly, a new type of cement would face an arduous route to acceptance. Unfamiliarity
with process and product would demand a rigorous, independent technical validation, leading,
at an initial stage, to some kind of formal certification. National or European standardisation
would, if sought, follow much later when the product had established itself as 'tried and tested'
i.e. as sufficiently durable under a wide range of exposure conditions. Even when appropriately
validated, use of the cement in structural applications could well meet with resistance,
particularly from specifiers as the representatives of the user-community. Specifiers would be
aware that existing Codes of Practice and national construction regulations do not recognise the
unfamiliar cement and cannot, therefore, provide a ‘deemed to satisfy’ solution. Confidence
building measures would be needed and early use in non-structural, less demanding
applications, would be obligatory until a ‘track record’ had been established. Use in structural
applications could well require the sponsors to underwrite performance by way of insurance
bonds/indemnities within demonstration projects. Use in general construction would require
acceptance as a permitted material in the relevant concrete, mortar etc (i.e. end-use)
standards and in engineering Codes of Practice.
How long might all this take before mainstream acceptance could be achieved for use of a new
cement in general construction? Unfortunately, it is not possible to say on an evidential basis
because there are no contemporary precedents.
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mass/mass, than Portland cements, even where they derive from less energy intensive
processes, and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Inventory of cements
What are alkali activated cements and geopolymeric cements?
Alkali-activated cements gain their strength, and other properties, via chemical reaction
between a source of alkali (soluble base activator) and aluminate-rich materials. The alkali
used as the activator tends to be an alkali silicate solution such as sodium silicate (waterglass)
but can also be sodium hydroxide solution, or a combination of the two, or other source of
alkali (such as lime). The aluminate-containing material - the pozzolan/latent hydraulic binder
component of the cement - can be coal fly ash, municipal solid waste incinerator ash (MSWIA),
metakaolin, blastfurnace slag, steel slag or other slags, or other alumina-rich materials. Use of
sodium silicate gives a low temperature sodium aluminosilicate glass, chemically similar to
naturally occurring zeolites (a special class of hydrated aluminosilicates). Geopolymeric
cements are particular examples of 'alkali-activated pozzolanic cements' or 'alkali-activated
latent hydraulic cements'.
All alkali-activated cements tend to have lower embodied energy/carbon footprints than
Portland cements (up to 80-90% but this is pozzolan dependent). Historically, short, erratic
setting times restricted the use of these cements, although predictable performance in the
fresh wet state is now claimed. Manufacture on a commercial basis is underway in Australia,
USA and possibly, China and precast/prefabricated concrete products based on these cements
are apparently available.
In comparison with Portland cement CEM I, energy savings can be as high as 25 %, with
limestone reductions of 60 % together with reductions in CO2 emissions of around 20 %.
Strength development broadly equivalent to Portland cement appears feasible and early
strength may be enhanced by adjustments to composition.
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Can CSA-belite cements be manufactured in the UK?
In principle, CSA-belite cements could be manufactured in the UK. There are no intrinsic
technical, process or material supply barriers to their production. However, the same measures
outlined above for alkali-activated/geopolymeric cements would need to be in place to ensure
consistent high quality product and to reassure construction sector stakeholders.
In order to produce these two different types of magnesium-oxide based cements, a heating
stage (pyro-processing) is involved but the different starting materials (and processes)
fundamentally influence the cement's intrinsic environmental credentials. Magnesium oxide-
based cements derived from silicate raw materials will have intrinsically smaller 'carbon
footprints' than those derived from carbonates because when silicates are heated there is no
chemically-bound CO2 to be emitted. Conversely, a fairly large quantity of CO2 is given off as a
reaction product where magnesium carbonates are heated. In this latter case, the cement's
environmental credentials rely crucially on how easily and completely such a cement can re-
carbonate (sequestrate atmospheric CO2) during its whole life cycle.
This same (atmospheric) carbonation process also occurs with hydrated Portland cement but at
intermediate humidity, most significantly in porous products such as concrete blocks or
masonry mortar. Aggregated over all uses and the whole life cycle, this can compensate for
about 20% of that liberated during manufacture.
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In terms of technical properties and performance, reactive magnesium oxide cements tend to
have a high water demand and this could lead to initial high porosity in high content materials.
This suggests that these cements are unlikely, in practice, to be 'standalone' products. They
are more likely to be used in combination with quantities of Portland cement and additional
materials such as coal/power-station fly ash or blastfurnace slag in order to increase solid
volume for pore-filling.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of this new cement is its potential to become a carbon-
negative product, because:
The inventors have observed that the production process to make 1 tonne of cement absorbs up
to 100 kg more CO2 than it emits, making it carbon negative.
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What are 'ecocements' based on municipal solid waste incinerator ash
(MSWIA) [12]?
Municipal solid waste incinerator ash (MSWIA) can be used in one of two ways to make a novel
cement. As described in the section on geopolymeric cements, it can be used as the major
component of an alkali-activated pozzolanic/geopolymeric cement or it can be used as a major
raw material within a novel process to produce a traditional Portland cement. It is this latter
usage, so far only in Japan within so called 'ecocements', which is explored here.
These types of ecocement are manufactured in Japan and are traditional Portland cements in
their mineralogical composition but processed from raw materials where 50% has been replaced
by MSWIA, and/or sewage sludge, and where waste oils, non-recyclable plastics and refuse-
derived fuels have replaced fossil-fuels. MSWIA ecocements are also lower energy cements in
that ‘clinkering’ takes place in a rotary kiln at 1350C rather than at 1450C, as is the case for
traditional Portland cement clinker. With the exception of a specialised rapid-hardening, high
chloride type produced for particular applications but unsuitable for use in structural
concretes, these ecocements are virtually indistinguishable from Portland cement CEM I and
consequently have the same properties, performance and applications.
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The developers claim that the carbon footprint of C-Fix concrete is 3½ times lower than that
for Portland cement-based concrete but this is only credible when the energy/carbon footprint
of the refining process that gives rise to the residue is completely discounted.
C Fix is a thermoplastic material (it softens when heated and hardens again when cooled), and
as such, within 'concrete' it is temperature and pressure sensitive. In consequence, it has a
much higher creep-related deformation under load than Portland cement-based concretes
therefore C-Fix will be unable to replace Portland cement in the generality of construction. It
may prove to be a useful material in certain applications in the search for more sustainable
cements/concretes. It could have considerable potential as a replacement for asphalt in road-
surfacing work, concrete in industrial flooring/paving and use in the marine and chemically
extreme environments. The overall potential of C Fix will only become clear with time.
What position does MPA Cement take on low energy, low carbon cements?
MPA Cement welcomes, and aims to be involved with, any initiatives that could lead to a
reduction both in the Portland cement industry’s contribution to environmental impacts such as
emissions of CO2 – currently at around 2% of the total in UK [12] – and to the amount of energy
embodied in its cements and, hence, in concrete, buildings and structures.
The Portland cement industry has conducted its own review [8] into the scientific and societal
issues involved in developing inorganically-based non-Portland alternatives and, on this basis
MPA Cement's Member Companies are carrying out their own confidential laboratory-based
research. The Portland cement industry has the objective of remaining in business in the long-
term and although the demands of the climate change agenda and free competition will drive
the search for alternatives to current processes and products, the industry will ensure that it
only manufactures cements that are safe and fit-for-purpose.
References
[1] Eco concrete, The contribution of cement and concrete to a more sustainable built
environment, British Cement Association, 97.381, ISBN 0 7210 1577 8, 2001
[2] Thermal mass, The Concrete Centre, 2005, TCC/05/05, ISBN 1-904818-13-7.
[3] Climate change and the indoor environment: impacts and adaptations, TM 36, CIBSE, Arup
and DTi, 2005
[4] Hacker, JN, Belcher, SE & Connell, RK (2005). Beating the heat: keeping UK buildings cool in
a warming climate. UKCIP Briefing Report. UKCIP, Oxford. (Available from:
www.ukcip.org.uk/resources/publications/documents/101.pdf).
[5] Sustainable Concrete, The environmental, social and economic sustainability credentials of
concrete, the Concrete Centre, 2007, TCC/05/03, ISBN 1-904818-43-9.
[6] Carbon Strategy, BCA, 2005 (available on http://cement.mineralproducts.org).
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[7] Performance, A corporate responsibility report from the UK cement industry, British Cement
Association, 2008, (available on http://cement.mineralproducts.org).
[8] Gartner, E, Industrially interesting approaches to 'low-CO2' cements, Cement and Concrete
Research, Volume 34, Issue 9, September 2004, pages 1489 – 1498, H.F.W. Taylor
Commemorative Issue, Elsevier, 2004.
[9] Calcium sulfoaluminate cements – low energy cements, special cements or what?, Sharp,
J.H., Lawrence, C.D. and Yang, R., Advances in cement research, 1999, 11, No. 1, January, pp
3-13.
[10] Green foundations, New Scientist, 13 July 2001.
[11] Jha, A. Revealed: The cement that eats carbon. Guardian newspaper, 31 December, 2008
[12] Ecocement: A new Portland cement to solve municipal and industrial waste problems,
Shimoda, T., Yokoyama, S. and Hirao, H., International Conference ‘Creating with Concrete’,
University of Dundee, Scotland, UK, 8 –10 September, 1999.