Research and development project "catch4climate": Another milestone achieved in the construction of the CO₂ capture facility

• In mid-June, the six oxygen tanks for the oxyfuel facility were installed on the construction site of the "catch4climate" CO₂ capture project.
• The oxyfuel furnace facility, for which over 120 million euros are being invested, is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2025.

With the delivery and installation of six oxygen tanks in mid-June, another important milestone was reached in the catch4climate project of the research company CI4C, a joint venture of the four European cement manufacturers Buzzi SpA - Dyckerhoff GmbH, Heidelberg Materials AG, SCHWENK Zement GmbH und Co. KG and Vicat S.A.

The tanks, each weighing around 26 tons, were lifted onto the foundations by two mobile cranes in a tandem lift. The vacuum-insulated tanks offer a total storage capacity of around 360 cubic meters of liquid oxygen, which is required in the new oxyfuel facility for combustion in the rotary kiln. The engineering, delivery and construction of the tank system was carried out by Westfalen AG, which has been involved in the "catch4climate" project since the beginning and, in addition to the oxygen supply, is also responsible for carrying out training measures for the research company CI4C.

In future, the oxygen will be delivered by truck as a cryogenic liquid (LOX = Liquified Oxygen). Cryogenic liquids are highly cooled gases with a boiling point close to -100 degrees Celsius or below. In order to deliver the required quantities of oxygen to the CI4C site in Mergelstetten with the lowest possible truck transport volume, Westfalen AG operates a so-called air separation plant in Laichingen. There, the essential components nitrogen and oxygen contained in the ambient air are separated by process technology and cooled and liquefied under pressure to approx. -187 degrees Celsius.

The oxyfuel furnace installation is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2025. After commissioning, a period of around three years is planned to work on the research and development results, if the progress of the results requires it.

Info on the CI4C project:
The four European cement manufacturers Buzzi SpA - Dyckerhoff GmbH, Heidelberg Materials AG, SCHWENK Zement GmbH und Co. KG and Vicat S.A. joined forces in 2019 to form the research company CI4C GmbH & Co. KG to jointly realize the "catch4climate" CO₂ capture project on the site of the SCHWENK cement plant in Mergelstetten. The facility, for the construction of which over 120 million euros are being invested, is the first to use the so-called pure oxyfuel process for CO₂ capture. A separate rotary kiln line with a clinker production capacity of 450 tons per day will be built for this purpose, which will be used exclusively for research and development.

The pure oxyfuel process:
The pure oxyfuel process used in Mergelstetten (oxy stands for oxygen in this case) is a clinker burning process in which pure oxygen is introduced into the kiln instead of air in order to ensure heat generation without atmospheric nitrogen during combustion. In this way, the proportion of CO₂ in the exhaust gas in the kiln is increased to around 90 percent, thereby significantly increasing the CO₂ capture potential. The aim is to capture 100 percent of a cement plant's CO₂ emissions cost-effectively. The project also aims to create the conditions for the large-scale use of CO₂ capture technologies in the cement industry. Capture enables the CO₂ to be used or stored at a later date (CCU, CCS).

Carbon is urgently needed in many branches of industry – for example in the production of fertilizers, fuels for long-haul flights or plastic-based hygienic medical products. To date, this carbon has been extracted almost exclusively from fossil fuels. Another possibility is the capture and use of CO₂ as a carbon carrier, which is produced in the cement industry.

Image: Conné van d´Grachten

Video: Götsch Media GmbH & Co. KG