C-ADD Team

From 16^th to 18^th November 2016 the Italian Mapei’s C-ADD team participated in the twenty-first edition of the Arab International Cement Conference and Exhibition (AICCE21), which was organized by AUCBM (Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials) and held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).

Once arrived in Abu Dhabi, foreign colleagues from Mapei Constructions Chemicals L.L.C Dubai and Vinavil Egypt have joined the Italian team.

As usual, the Exhibition has attracted a wide audience offering several networking and business opportunities. AICCE is in fact one of the most famous and important conference on cement all over the world, bringing together not only the biggest Arab cement producers, but also all the major manufacturers of technologies related to cement production process.

Many companies were present with their own booths and made their speech during the conference. On Mapei booth several posters were showing the C-ADD logo and attesting to our commitment on important themes such as Security and Sustainability. Indeed, we strongly believe that human and environmental health, along with social and economic issues are an integral part of all our business activities. For that reason, C-ADD team closely operates with  the cement industry for the continuous improvement of the safety standards and the achievement of more and more important objectives in terms of environmental, economic and social sustainability.

AICCE21 has been also an outstanding opportunity to strengthen our sense of belonging to the C-ADD’s family, making us even more aware of the importance of being a great “team” - the C-ADD team, where co-operation and mutual support are the main driver of our success and where interaction and ideas exchange are essential elements for continuously improving. As a natural consequence, participation in this  important event has strengthened everybody’s feelings of being part of the bigger Mapei’s family.

During the first session of the Conference, Mapei’s C-ADD team (our colleague from Mapei Dubai, Fakhraldin Awadalkarim) delivered a speech about “Fly ash blended cements: process and hydration improvement through the use of cement additives”.

In this regard, it is necessary to previously remind that one of the main objectives of C-ADD team is to become a long term technical partner for the cement industry. During the speech it was therefore stressed the importance to understand cement plant needs, which can be summarized in the following main points:

- Process optimization: energy savings in clinker and cement production, introduction of alternative fuels, reducing environmental impact.

- Reduction of CO₂ emissions thanks to low clinker cements production and thus to the increased employment of additive materials (limestone, slag, fly ash, etc.) and development of alternative hydraulic binders (aluminous or sulfo-aluminous cements, geopolymers, etc.).

- Improved understanding of the cement hydration mechanism.

This technical work is included in a major project focused on the reduction of the environmental impact related to the whole cement production process.

Cement manufacture accounts for a significant part of man-made CO₂ emissions. It is currently estimated that the cement industry is globally contributing to 5% of the total anthropogenic CO₂ emission.

This value is given by the sum of CO₂ deriving from limestone decomposition and the one connected to the use of fossil fuels, both related to the clinker production process.

It can be estimated that, for each ton of clinker produced, an associated CO₂ amount of 700 to 1000 kg is released into the atmosphere.

Because of increasingly stringent regulation on greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of CO₂ is the biggest challenge that the world cement industry will face in the upcoming years.

Since the efficiency of the clinker production technology has probably reached the highest levels, the most useful strategies to achieve this goal are attributable to the production of cements with reduced content of clinker, that is with a higher content of other constituents.

The use of additive materials such as fly ash, slag, pozzolan and limestone in the cement production has increased greatly and is expected to rise again. On the other hand, it is known that when the amount of clinker within the cement composition is reduced, performance is penalized, especially from the mechanical strength (which are significantly lower) and workability point of view.

It becomes therefore necessary to find and develop new technologies that could allow the use of higher quantities of secondary components, minimizing the negative effects on cement performance.

In this presentation we have described the benefits that can be obtained with the use of Mapei Cement Additives in the production of fly ash blended cements, in terms of grinding process and control of clinker/fly ash hydration, investigating also the effect of limestone addition in different amounts.

It results from our researches that thanks to the use of C-ADD new technologies, considerable economic savings and CO₂ emissions reduction can be achieved mainly from:

• Reducing the clinker factor (3 to 10%)

•  Activating the hydraulic properties of fly ash

•  Optimizing the grinding system

Further details on this topic, along with specific data and laboratory test results can be found in the full article, which is available at our web site http://C-ADD.mapei.com/en/.

The next Arab International Conference and Exhibition (AICCE22) will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2017.