A small industrial estate on the northern outskirts of Wrexham in North Wales is not the most obvious place for the launch of a material that threatens to disrupt an entire industry.
And yet tucked away just off the Llay Road in the village of the same name, is the production base for a new type of cement that aims to do just that 鈥� and at the same time consign millennia of received wisdom to the dustbin of history.
That might sound like excessive journalistic hyperbole but it鈥檚 no more than the brains behind a new company 鈥� Material Evolution 鈥� are claiming. And if they are right, then the only reason that people are still making cement by burning clinker in massive kilns is force of habit.
Cement production has changed little since fledgling concretes were produced during the Roman Empire. Basically you build a big oven, chuck some limestone in there with some other bits and pieces and heat the mixture to about 1500oC until you drive off the carbon dioxide. You then take whatever is left in the oven and grind it up to produce cement.
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There might be slightly more science involved in the process but effectively that鈥檚 it in a nutshell.
What this does is produce a material that is so brilliantly uniform, so utterly reliable, that it has become a prerequisite for use in all construction projects across the globe whatever their scale and grandeur.
No cement, no Sydney Opera House, no M25, no Hinkley Point Power Station, no kitchen extension at number 35 Mercer Road.
Our appetite for cement has seen global production increase to more than four billion tonnes per year 鈥� eight million tonnes of which is produced in the UK.
But for all its fantastic properties it has one spectacular Achillies heel, one that has been struck by the arrow of climate change. It has an enormous carbon footprint.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) global cement manufacturing produced 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022. A figure which equates to 8% of the world鈥檚 total CO2 emissions.
And as a vital constituent of concrete 鈥� with its global annual production of 14 billion cubic metres 鈥� that cement has a huge impact on the carbon footprint of the built environment. In a world where clients 鈥� be they corporate, central government, local authority or private 鈥� are writing carbon footprint reduction targets into their tenders, then it makes sense to focus attention on the world鈥檚 second-most widely used material after water.
Most concrete suppliers now have some sort of 鈥榚co鈥� offering. Often these are little more than replacement mixes 鈥� where the carbon footprint is reduced largely thanks to replacing some of the cement with other materials such as ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) or pulverised fuel ash (PFA).
Of course anything that helps to reduce carbon emissions from cement production is laudable. But with concrete providing as much as 50% of the total carbon emissions from a typical project, surely it makes more sense to reduce the embodied carbon of the ingredient that accounts for 80% of the emissions of concrete?
Which is where start-up company Material Evolution and the unprepossessing industrial estate in North Wales comes in.
It has developed a low carbon cement 鈥� called MevoCem 鈥� that it claims offers up to 85% emissions reductions compared to those of ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
鈥淲e don鈥檛 need the huge rotating kilns that you would see at conventional cement plants because we don鈥檛 use heat to trigger the reaction process in our raw materials. We use alkalis,鈥� says David Hughes, chief scientific officer at Material Evolution.
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Those alkalis are mixed with the MevoCem constituent ingredients including GGBS and other, secret, ingredients which Material Evolution describes as 鈥渨aste materials from industrial processes鈥�. An educated guess is that mine tailings probably feature somewhere 鈥� but that is just a guess.
The ingredients and alkalis 鈥� accurately dosed using techniques and equipment more usually used in the pharmaceutical sector 鈥� are worked together at ambient temperature in the alkali fusion reactor. This is where the magic happens. Rather than the high temperatures normally used to break the chemical bonds within the ingredients, the alkali-fusion reactor (which to those not in the know looks like little more than a black steel box) depends on the mechanical process of the ingredients being churned together.
鈥淐ement production is a 鈥榩hase-change鈥� process that normally uses very high temperatures to bring about that change. Our alkali-fusion process is more a mechanical process which provides that phase-change,鈥� explains Hughes.
There is no discernible difference between the resulting product and any other cement produced in the more traditional way. It鈥檚 a powder and it鈥檚 grey. The only slight change is that when mixed with water it initially takes on a slightly glossy look 鈥� comparable to dull grey icing sugar 鈥� but its properties are exactly the same as conventional cement.
鈥淢evoCem is a one-part material. It is used in the same way as conventional cements 鈥� there are similar water:cement ratios to make concrete. We wanted to make a material that would be familiar to users,鈥� Hughes says.
And that certainly seems to be the case. The initial production facility has been set up on the site of precast concrete block manufacturer CCP Building Products. At present the firm is taking the bulk of the cement produced at the plant and using it in its blocks but Material Evolution has carried out trials on ready-mix material too 鈥� with positive feedback.
鈥淲e have found there is an increase in the flexural strength of concrete so that has the potential for some interesting applications 鈥� particularly slab thickness,鈥� says Hughes.
The plant鈥檚 current production capacity is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the annual consumption of the UK cement market but its ambition is to prove the system and pave the way for larger facilities.
The staid world of cement needs a shake up, one that the wider environment would benefit from. Perhaps Material Evolution is about to become the disrupter that provides it.
The ultimate lockdown project?
When the Covid pandemic struck in early 2020 work was immediately halted on construction projects around the country. For a while project managers, suppliers and subcontractors were left twiddling their thumbs until the lockdown was lifted and sites returned to a level of normality.
For many, lockdown 鈥� and furlough 鈥� offered an opportunity to make a start on projects of their own. Garden sheds were turned into offices, bathrooms were tiled and new kitchens were fitted.
But in the Devon seaside town of Torquay, Material Evolution co-founders Dr Liz Gilligan and Sam Clarke had their own, slightly more ambitious, lockdown project gestating in their minds.
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鈥淲e actually conceived the idea and ran trials in my parent鈥檚 garage during lockdown,鈥� smiles Dr Gilligan, 鈥淲e wanted to find a way to make construction more environmentally friendly 鈥� and thought 鈥榃hy can鈥檛 we make cement without heat?鈥欌��, she adds.
With a background in architecture and a PhD thesis exploring bio-cements made from industrial waste, Dr Gilligan knew that the idea was feasible. She just needed to prove it.
Initial small-batch trials were conducted in that Torquay garage and the organisational prowess of chief operating officer Sam Clarke, using his experience gained in project management and security for The Royal Household, has seen the two develop opportunities for the business.
鈥淲e have brought in great partners in SigmaRoc [a construction minerals investor] and we need to continue to build confidence in our products and develop further opportunities. We are committed to saving one gigatonne of CO2 emissions by 2040,鈥� he says.
Dr Gilligan too is well aware that the process needs to be scaled up if the firm is to have any significant impact on the global cement industry.
鈥淭here are several avenues we could go down but ultimately we want to be able to produce something that changes the production process for the good of the environment. We have had fantastic support from our partners in this and we want to continue to get our product out there. It鈥檚 something that we are working on,鈥� she says.
Proving The Process In Wrexham
Wrexham has had plenty of star-dust sprinkled over it of late. With Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney taking over the ownership of the city鈥檚 football club and a Disney documentary series charting their success, Wrexham has been thrust into the international spotlight.
Now Material Evolution will be hoping its new cement production facility, opened by Wrexham AFC鈥檚 manager Phil Parkinson last month, can bask in some of that reflected Hollywood glow.
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Designed, developed, installed and manufacturing in just eight months, the cement plant is located alongside the manufacturing facility of precast concrete producer CCP Products and is fully automated, with production co-ordinated by just one person in the control room.
Bulk powdered products are brought into the plant 30 tonnes at a time by tanker and blown into the large silos that sit outside the main precast works. From the control room the plant manager oversees the dosing of the raw material with the alkalis before they head to the alkali-fusion reactor and the state-change process from raw material to cement takes place.
鈥淢aterial is transferred around the plant using pneumatics and its automation helps us reduce the human/machine interface. We are a data-driven business which will enable us to pinpoint any efficiencies that can be made within the process,鈥� explains Wesley Gounder, head of process engineering at Materials Evolution.
Once out of the alkali-fusion reactor the material is either blown into a silo for discharge into tankers or diverted directly to CCP鈥檚 precast block plant.
鈥淲e designed the plant in modular form so that it will be quite easy to scale the production. We can simply add more modules,鈥� says Gounder.
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