Sublime Systems – the company revolutionizing the cement industry has achieved a milestone that would help it unlock the path towards global commercialization of the solution. Sublime announced that its product has obtained ASTM C1157 designation – an industry standard that enables Sublime Cement™ to be used compliantly under major U.S. and international building codes.
That, in turn, unlocks a path for the low carbon cement to replace the currently used high emissions ordinary portland cement (OPC) at scale.
Relevant: “Sublime Systems Eliminates Fossil Fuels From Cement Production” – CEO Dr. Leah Ellis
The ASTM C1157 specification is a performance-based standard that has more stringent strength requirements than older hydraulic cement standards like ASTM C150 for OPC and ASTM C595 for blended cement which contain prescriptive and performance requirements.
The ASTM C1157 standard specifies performance requirements of the cement of Sublime Systems across parameters like strength development, durability, low shrinkage and cracking. It is also being increasingly adopted as the industry moves towards performance-based standards.
After testing the Sublime Cement™, the standard certifies that it exceeds all ASTM C1157 General Use performance requirements and outperforms many samples of OPC in ultimate strength and durability. The results suggest that Sublime’s cement extends the life of the final product that is being used to make, relative to today’s industry standard.
Sublime is currently conducting additional tests measuring its cement’s performance in concrete through third-party ready-mix concrete labs and in field use cases. Sublime currently has an operational pilot facility with a design capacity of >100 tonnes of cement per year, but the company plans to commission its first commercial plant in 2025.
“Sublime was founded to have a swift, massive, and enduring impact on global CO2 emissions, and we’ve designed our process to avoid CO2 at every step, rather than polluting and cleaning up afterwards… At the same time, we take our responsibility in manufacturing a next-generation product very seriously – we need to make a high-performing cement that is safe and easy to adopt. Data-driven performance-based standards, like ASTM C1157, allow us to solve the right problems: safety and carbon avoidance, rather than adherence to a legacy recipe. Passing the ASTM C1157 standard is an important milestone in showing that Sublime’s low-carbon cement innovation integrates into the same quality concrete building material that the construction industry requires,” explains Leah Ellis, PhD, Sublime Systems Co-Founder and CEO.
Sublime’s next-generation technology for producing cement saves emissions compared to ordinary cement making. Carbon emissions from the ordinary process come from the fossil-fuel-fired kilns that are needed to decompose limestone into lime, and the chemical reaction of decomposition itself that also emits CO2.
Sublime Systems’ fossil-fuel-free process forgoes these two steps, replacing the legacy kilns with an electrochemical approach that makes cement at ambient temperature and uses renewable electricity to extract calcium and silicates from a diversity of non-carbonate raw materials which saves emissions from the whole cement-making process.
Relevant: Sublime Systems Raises $40M In Funding For Revolutionary Zero Emissions Cement
According to the company, Sublime Cement™ is a true zero product rather than a net zero one as it does not require offsets or additional carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure to reduce emissions.
“Sublime is on course to make CO2-free cement that performs better and costs less than what pours out of concrete trucks today… Now, the ASTM C1157 designation paves the way for global adoption of the world’s cleanest cement,” comments Clay Dumas, general partner at Lowercarbon Capital, one of the company’s backers.
