New project is looking at carbon capture to make the cement industry climate-neutral

In Germany, researchers in the newly launched joint project “CO 2 -Syn” are looking for ways to capture and convert the greenhouse gas CO2 into starting materials, for example to produce basic chemicals such as olefins and higher alcohols, for the cement industry where carbon dioxide is an unavoidable by-product: It is produced when calcium carbonate is burned to form calcium oxide and is then released. As a result, the cement industry currently contributes four to eight percent of global CO 2 emissions.

The concrete solution that Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the phosphorescent plant Breitungen, the Phoenix cement works Krogbeumker and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum are taking is called power-to-chemicals. Renewable energies such as wind power are used to convert CO 2 and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen via electrolysis. Mixtures of these two substances – so-called synthesis gases – are then used to produce the desired chemical products using further catalytic conversion processes.