Ultra-low carbon cement factory production to start this autumn

A Teesside-based company will start production of its ultra-low carbon cement in Wrexham in North Wales this October, making it the biggest producer of the product in the UK.

Material Evolution is the driving force behind the £7.6m Mevocrete project, funded by Innovate UK through the Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge programme.

It has worked closely with academic and industrial partners to develop the ultra-low carbon geopolymer cement technology for production at scale.

Its new Wrexham factory will produce 150,000 tonnes annually of a product that emits up to 85% less embodied CO2 than traditional Ordinary Portland Cement, with what is claimed to be no reduction in quality and workability.

The Middlesbrough firm manufactures cement from steel industry by-products through a special reactor that operates at room temperature and has ambitious plans to replicate and scale its production process across the UK and Europe.

Professor David Hughes, CSO at Material Evolution and co-lead of the Mevocrete project, said, "This project really is a collaborative journey for a more positive carbon neutral built environment which, through Mevocrete and new technology, sees an untapped supply of historic by-products from heavy industry diverted away from landfill.

"Concrete is ubiquitous in nature being the second most used material on earth, and is one of the world's biggest contributors to CO2 emissions, so presenting solutions for its decarbonisation is at the heart of circular efforts within the construction industry.

"Cement is a binder and what we're looking at here is creating a net zero embodied carbon cement which is inherently more durable, which means our houses, infrastructure and transport highways would be transformed on mass industry scale, really tapping into a local and national picture of a net zero environment."

“We’re already having conversations with leading contractors, architects, government agencies and institutions that ultimately have a huge say in the way cement is made and specified.”

A recent revision to the industry standard for concrete, BS 8500, allows for the specification of a wider range of lower carbon concretes to help decarbonise construction projects.

Business co-founder Dr Liz Gilligan said Material Evolution aims to remove one gigaton of carbon by 2040, while replacing OPC as the ‘go-to’ product for UK construction.