LEILAC 2 is in the pipeline

The success of the The Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement (LEILAC) project to separate and capture CO₂ from the cement production process will enable a second LEILAC 2 project to be pipelined.



The LEILAC project, located at the Lixhe cement plant in Belgium, which started operations to capture CO₂ emissions from the cement production process using Calix technology in May 2019, will continue to be tested until the end of 2020. 

The LEILAC 2 project will have a new reactor, about a fifth of the size of a conventional cement plant and will focus on the ultimate destination of the extracted CO₂.

This time the reactor will be integrated into the cement-making process and project planners aim to electrify heat required for the clinker production.

LEILAC 2 will incorporate about 'half of the partners from its predecessor, with Calix and HeidelbergCement still at its core," says ENDS report. 



Jan Theulen of project partner HeidelbergCement says: "We want to be ready with the technology once the [carbon] price is there to make it commercially viable." He adds, "it’s a bit of fighting your way through. But if we don’t do it now, and we wait until the carbon price is EUR100/t, then we’d need another 10 years to do it."

LEILAC partners include: HeidelbergCement, Lhoist, Cemex, Calix, PSE, Carbon Truct, TNO, Tarmac (CRH), Quantis, Solvay, Imperial College London and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research innovation programme.