UltraTech partners with UCLA ICM for zero-carbon cement

UltraTech Cement and UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) are collaborating to pilot ZeroCAL technology, which aims to significantly reduce cement production emissions.

UltraTech Cement Limited, India’s largest cement and ready-mix concrete (RMC) company, recently entered into a collaboration agreement with the Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to pilot a groundbreaking new technology developed by ICM, called Zero Carbon Lime (ZeroCAL), which can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cement production. In collaboration with UltraTech, ICM will construct a one-of-a-kind demonstration plant for the technology at one of UltraTech’s integrated cement manufacturing facilities.

ICM researchers created the Zero Carbon Lime (ZeroCAL) technology, which eliminates about 98 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions related with limestone degradation in cement making. UltraTech will be the world’s first company to scale the ZeroCAL process with a demonstration unit that will generate several metric tonnes of zero-carbon lime per day. UltraTech’s collaboration with UCLA is consistent with the company’s overall environmental aims, as well as its emphasis on creating and implementing breakthrough technology to reduce carbon emissions.

“UltraTech is fully committed to realising its Net Zero Goal by 2050. As an industry leader UltraTech is constantly exploring partnerships to overcome the technological barriers to decarbonise cement manufacturing.” says K C Jhanwar, Managing Director at UltraTech. “We are excited to collaborate with UCLA on this groundbreaking project. Partnerships like these, which place an emphasis on developing and deploying new and emerging technologies, will be a key enabler in our sector’s efforts to accelerate decarbonisation and deliver carbon neutral concrete by 2050,” he expresses.

“The ZeroCAL approach is a powerful solution to eliminate carbon emissions associated with the process of cement production within the existing industrial paradigm of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) clinker production and without a need for carbon capture and storage,” says Professor Gaurav Sant, ICM director and the study’s corresponding author and the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. “It effectively eliminates the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from limestone’s decomposition while providing clean hydrogen and oxygen to heat the cement kiln,” he adds.

To speed its decarbonisation efforts, UltraTech is working with technology companies to investigate the usage of emerging decarbonisation technologies such as kiln electrification and carbon capture and storage.

For more details, visit: https://www.ultratechcement.com/

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