A research consortium involving Dublin-headquartered low-carbon cement-maker Ecocem has been awarded a €4m research grant by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to develop electric arc furnace (EAF) slag for use in low-carbon cement.
The award comes as steel makers shift from blast furnaces to EAFs to decarbonise, changing the nature of the leftover slag.
The goal is to make EAF slag work better as a supplementary cementitious material without compromising the cement’s durability.
The EIC had called for research proposals on the theme of making cement and concrete a carbon sink.
The Ecocem bid was one of 31 winners out of 401 submissions in this round.
“For many years, we have been pioneering the use of a range of slags and cementitious materials to create scalable and durable low-carbon cement,” said Eoin Condren, the company’s corporate development executive director.
He said the grant would help find “a viable solution for a new generation of waste from steel”.
The bid was developed by Ecocem scientist Simon Blotevogel in collaboration with ArcelorMittal, the University of Toulouse, the FehS Building Materials Institute, the CNRS – Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and the ETH.
The research will last four years, with testing taking place in Paris in partnership with ArcelorMittal.
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