Innovation at Cemex have a focus beyond products and are related to CO2, clean energy and climate change.

Founded in 1906, Cemex is active in the building materials industry and is one of the world’s largest cement companies.

As part of its plans, the company has significant targets to decarbonize its operations and bring its concrete CO2 footprint to net zero. 

Some of its innovations in the pipeline include novel approaches to reducing the clinker factor, creating value from CO2, utilizing CO2 in the mineralization (carbonation) of materials (e.g., recycled concrete), technologies to reuse waste materials to enable their reuse and recycling, and exploring renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels. 

Clinker is the main granular raw material, typically 3 to 25 millimeters in size, used to produce portland cement and is manufactured by calcining a mixture of limestone and clay at an elevated temperature.

Innovation at Cemex

The company has innovated in product technology, such as high-performance concrete; production processes, such as the use of more energy-efficient cement kilns; logistics, such as the implementation of fleet tracking and management technologies; services, such as the design of customized blends; and sustainability, such as the development of low-carbon cements.

In 2022, one of its projects provided an example of value creation from CO2 by demonstrating that it is possible to directly use CO2 as-is from flue gases to produce carbon nanomaterials, which in turn have several high-value uses in the automotive, electronics, and medical fields, among others. 

Cemex is also working on the use of concentrated solar thermal energy to power the entire clinker production process with renewable energy. 

Research

In 2022, the company produced the first-ever solar clinker. In addition, it is developing processes that can micronize materials that are potential substitutes for clinker, and is finding that, due to the higher reactivity of these materials, it can expect to further decrease the clinker factor in its cement products. 

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCS) is another central focus of its research. 

Cemex expects that approximately 30% of its total CO2 emissions can one day be reduced through CCS.

CCS is an important part of achieving its net-zero concrete strategy by 2050.