LEILAC by Calix

The LEILAC project, headed by tech company Calix, aims to develop a plant to separate and capture the high-purity CO2 given off during the production of cement. In future, the technology developed here could capture up to 95 per cent of the unavoidable process-related CO2 quantities, thereby reducing the environmentally harmful carbon emissions in the cement and lime industries. The pilot plant is operated by cement manufacturer HeidelbergCement.

Cement production is an industrial process with one of the highest levels of emissions: the majority of these CO2 emission are released by the limestone itself when it is heated. These emissions cannot be avoided by switching to climate-friendly fuels. The carbon capture application being tested at the pilot plants in the LEILAC (Low Emissions Intensity Lime & Cement) project offers a means of capturing these unavoidable carbon emissions in the future and either utilising them as a raw material in the chemical industry (CCU) or storing them underground (CCS).

Innovation: Separation of high-purity CO2

The plant developed in the project uses what is known as “Direct Separation” or DS for short. In this process, the basic raw material limestone is indirectly heated and fired inside a steel cylinder. The pure CO2 that is released in the process is captured and can then be transported and used. Since the CO2 produced no longer needs to be separated from a mixture of gases, this process requires less energy than other separation techniques. In the pilot plant, the needed temperatures of over 1,000 centigrade are still generated by burning natural gas; in future, switching to alternative renewable fuels will be possible.

„LEILAC brings together research and industry to develop a low-cost technology to decarbonise the global cement and lime industries. Supported by the EU, the aim is to scale up and rapidly deploy this new solution for hard to abate process emissions."

Daniel Rennie, General Manager Europe at Calix

95%

per cent of process-related CO2 could be captured in future.

Menschen in Schutzkleidung vor Industrieanlage

Site tour at LEILAC plant. © Paul Poels

Bau der Pilotanlage

Construction of the pilot plant. © Paul Poels

Feierliche Eröffnung der Pilotanlage LEILAC 1

Cutting the ribbon at LEILAC pilot plant. © Paul Poels

Blütenbäume vor Industrieanlage

Production plant and nature. © Paul Poels

LEILAC Pilotanlage von oben

View of the top of the LEILAC. © Paul Poels

Efficiency: Scaling up the technology

Alongside Calix, a total of eleven research institutes and companies are involved in the EU-funded LEILAC project, including IN4climate.NRW’s partners HeidelbergCement, Lhoist and Solvay. The test operation is currently running at an initial pilot plant in Lixhe in Belgium. The 10 tonnes of raw materials per hour that are deployed here equate to about five per cent of the capacity of a typical cement works. The follow-up project LEILAC 2, started in April 2020, aims to quadruple this capacity with a demonstration plant in a HeidelbergCement works in Germany by the end of 2024.

Effect: Proven technologies for carbon capture

The pilot and demonstration plants do not yet have a direct impact in terms of climate protection, since they subsequently release the CO2 captured for testing purposes into the atmosphere. The technology developed offers a solution for dealing with CO2emissions in a more climate-friendly way in the future, however, since these process-related emissions cannot be avoided even by switching to renewable energy. About 95 per cent of process-related CO2 emissions can be captured in future using this technology on an industrial scale. The LEILAC 2 demonstration plant will already be able to reduce emissions by 100,000 tonnes a year as soon as a cost-effective way of utilising CO2 under suitable conditions is available.

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Daniel Rennie

Calix, General Manager – Europe

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