About cement

A Solidia pilot clinkering test performed at Ibutec facilities

In June 2016, the European LIFE program provided the award grant N° LIFE15 CCM/FR/000116 to the Solid LIFE project. This grant funds LafargeHolcim, Solidia Technologies® and Building Research Establishment efforts to develop and deploy this technology within Europe.  In the framework of Solid LIFE project, a pilot clinkering trial was foreseen in order to assess five different raw mixes coming from different LafargeHolcim plants.

In October 2017, a pilot trial occurred at IbuTec facilities (Weimar, Germany, www.ibu-tec.com) in their pilot clinkering installation. Five different raw mixes were tested varying the composition of raw materials in order to assess the impact of chemistry on the clinkers quality and their burnability.

Pilot rotary kiln and Solidia clinker

Raw materials from Koromacno (Croatia) and Malagoszcz (Poland) plants were sent to Ibutec facilities for crushing and grinding in the defined proportions before entering the 2 stages dry process pilot kiln from Ibutec. Two tons of each clinker were produced and sent to LafargeHolcim research center in Lyon for characterization and testing in concrete.

The clinker quality was assessed and followed by X-Ray Diffraction during the trial production and crosschecked once back in Lyon. Concrete testings using these cements are promising and confirm the quality predictions obtained by high-temperature thermodynamic simulations performed previously.