UltraTech collaborates with UCLA to advance cement industry decarbonisation

UltraTech to pilot new technology aimed at decarbonising cement manufacturing at scale

ZeroCAL Process, Image: Adrienne Johnston

Mumbai, October 24, 2024: UltraTech Cement Limited, India’s largest cement and ready-mix concrete (RMC) company, announced the signing of a collaboration agreement with the Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to pilot a groundbreaking new technology The Zero Carbon Lime (ZeroCAL) developed by ICM that can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cement production. ICM, in partnership with UltraTech, will build a first-of-a-kind demonstration plant for the technology at one of UltraTech’s integrated cement manufacturing units.

The Zero Carbon Lime (ZeroCAL) process, developed by ICM researchers, can eliminate nearly 98% of carbon dioxide emissions associated with limestone decomposition in cement manufacturing. UltraTech will be the first company globally to implement the ZeroCAL process at scale through a demonstration plant that will produce several metric tons of zero-carbon lime per day. UltraTech’s partnership with UCLA aligns with its broader sustainability goals and its focus on developing and adopting innovative technologies to decarbonise its operations.

"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.” said Mr. 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 added.

“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,” said 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 added.

To accelerate its decarbonisation efforts, UltraTech is collaborating with technology startups to explore the use of emerging decarbonisation technologies including kiln electrification and carbon capture & storage.

Notes to Editors:

• The ZeroCAL process, which can be integrated with existing cement plants, uses limestone feedstock to produce calcium hydroxide, which emits no carbon dioxide when heated to produce lime required for manufacturing cement.

• In the existing cement production process, the calcination of limestone in the preheater causes carbon dioxide to be released in the atmosphere. The ZeroCAL process produces calcium hydroxide by electrochemically decomposing limestone in water without resulting in carbon dioxide emission.

• The major advantage of the ZeroCAL process is its compatibility with the existing cement manufacturing process. Calcium hydroxide, the key product of the ZeroCAL process, is simply dewatered and is fed as a drop-in replacement (for limestone) into the cement kiln. 

• The byproducts of ZeroCAL process include commonly used hydrochloric acid and baking soda as well as oxygen and hydrogen gas. Hydrogen can be used as green fuel replacing coal while oxygen can be used in the cement kiln to improve combustion efficiencies (oxy-combustion).

• The ZeroCAL process enables the utilisation of a broader range of limestone grades in the production of cement thus reducing the burden on limestone reserves and allowing for more efficient use of natural resources.

• More details on the ZeroCAL process are available in a study published in the American Chemical Society’s journal Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. The researchers describe how the new approach provides an affordable alternative to existing solutions to decarbonise the industry