(Berlin / Dauerthal / Johannesburg) – An international consortium wants to kill two birds with one stone: reduce a cement manufacturer's carbon footprint while producing sustainable aviation fuel. “Both the cement and aviation industries are widely considered to be the sectors with the greatest challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The internationally operating company CEMEX SAB de CV, one of the world's largest manufacturers of cement and concrete with headquarters in Mexico, as well as Sasol ecoFT, a newly founded division of the South African petroleum and chemical group Sasol Ltd., participate in the joint venture “Concrete Chemicals GmbH”. ., as well as the electricity producer Enertrag SE from Dauerthal in Brandenburg. The headquarters of the new company is the CEMEX cement plant in Rüdersdorf near Berlin.
Using green hydrogen to create e-kerosene
In the project, the carbon dioxide produced during cement production is converted into a synthesis gas (CO/H2) using green hydrogen in a power-to-liquid (PtL) process. This in turn is used to produce e-kerosene, which is to be certified as “Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) for use in aircraft.
The Fischer-Tropsch process is used, which was developed by the two German chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch and applied for a patent in 1925. The company South African Synthetic Oil Ltd. (Suid Afrikaanse Steenkool en Olie, Sasol) had industrially expanded this process for producing fuel based on the large hard coal deposits in South Africa in the middle of the last century.
35.000 tons of jet fuel per year
According to the plans, a large-scale demonstration plant will be built in Rüdersdorf in two stages. Initially, 100 tons of CO2 per day are separated in the cement factory and processed into 15.000 tons of e-kerosene annually using green hydrogen, the production of which is supplied by electricity from renewable energy power plants. In the second expansion stage there will be 35.000 tons of e-kerosene per year. However, the companies did not provide any specific information about investment costs nor did they give a timetable for implementing their project.
Photos
Rüdersdorf cement plant © CEMEX Deutschland AG
