Synhelion and Cemex produce the first solar concrete
Synhelion supplied the process heat for the first solar clinker. The global pioneer of sustainable solar fuels produced it with the cement producer Cemex in a Spanish pilot plant. This is a first step towards the development of fully solar-powered cement plants.
Synhelion and Mexico’s Cemex , the world’s fifth largest cement producer in 2020, have produced the world’s first solar clinker. As both companies write in a media release of the same name, this “revolutionary innovation” is a “first step towards the development of completely solar-powered cement plants”. dr Gianluca Ambrosetti, CEO and co-founder of Synhelion, is proud to “join with Cemex to demonstrate a concrete, industrially relevant application of our fully renewable high-temperature solar heating”.
Synhelion emerged from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 2016. The company’s technology aims to replace all types of fossil fuels with solar fuels. According to the information, it converts concentrated heat from the sun into “the hottest process heat available on the market”. Cemex wants to supply CO2-neutral concrete worldwide by 2050. A key part of this strategy is CEMEX Ventures and its research and development center in Brügg BE.
Research teams from both companies installed a pilot plant on the premises of the Madrid Regional Government’s Imdea Energy Research Institute . There, the solar receiver from Synhelion delivered “record-breaking” temperatures of over 1500 degrees with concentrated sunlight. A gaseous heat transfer medium is thus heated. This provided the heat needed to melt limestone, clay, and other materials together.
The clinker obtained in this way was used to manufacture cement and then processed into concrete. In the next phase of their joint research and development project, Synhelion and Cemex intend to work towards an industrial-scale pilot plant.