Leilac, an innovative cement and lime decarbonization technology company, announces it has signed a perpetual global licence agreement for the use of its technology with Heidelberg Materials – one of the world’s largest cement producers and building materials companies.
The licence agreement applies to the use of Leilac’s technology at any Heidelberg Materials facility where it is installed. Heidelberg Materials operates 149 cement plants across 5 continents.
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The companies have been working together since 2014 and now the agreement opens doors to implementing the groundbreaking technology at a larger scale.
“Adding it to our portfolio of carbon capture technologies, we will be even better positioned to make custom-fit technology decisions at each site. The licence agreement enables us to scale up the Leilac technology at very good commercial terms and based on a trusted partnership,” explained Dr Dominik von Achten, Heidelberg Materials Chairman of the Managing Board.
According to Leilac CEO, Daniel Rennie, the licence agreement with Heidelberg Materials is a key milestone in the development and commercialization of the Leilac technology. It could also truly turn sustainable cement and lime into a mainstream approach.
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Leilac is a collaborative technology venture, 93% owned by Calix subsidiary and 7% owned by Carbon Direct, aiming to enable sustainable decarbonization of cement and lime. Its first pilot project commenced in 2016 to test the separation and capture of unavoidable CO2 process emissions in cement and lime production.
The company claims its novel calciner (kiln) represents a breakthrough in carbon capture technology. It separates the heat source from the chemical processing of raw materials with no additional chemicals or processes.
What is innovative is that the technology keeps the CO2 that is released from the raw materials pure, rather than trying to separate gases from gases, which is the reason carbon capture is traditionally expensive. Therefore, Leilac delivers a pure stream of CO2 process emissions that is kept separate from any furnace exhaust gases or air.
The efficiently separated CO2 emissions are thus ready for utilization or storage. The technology is energy-agnostic and electrification-ready which provides flexible and economical pathways to net zero cement. Leilac’s modular design is also designed to be retrofitted to cement plants with minimal operational impact, providing a transformational implementation approach that can be adopted at any scale.
