Cleantech Construction Map

Our sustainability approach through Open Innovation: Carbon Capture Utilization Storage, Hydrogen, Industrial heat, and Circular Economy. Find the 25 most promising Cleantech solutions of 2023 that are redefining the Contech ecosystem.

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As the construction industry aggressively works to cut carbon emissions and reduce its negative impact on the environment, many startups and top construction companies are looking actively to develop and implement innovations in cleantech.

CEMEX Ventures is dedicated to leading the construction industry revolution as it becomes greener and cleaner. CEMEX Ventures’ team of investment specialists scope out the most disruptive clean technologies that reduce CO2 emissions and that promote a circular economy with alternative energy sources and new business models.

Cleantech is the abbreviation of clean technology, which refers to any technology that simultaneously reduces or optimizes the use of natural resources while lessening or avoiding altogether the environmental damage of a process, product, or service. Renewable energy (wind, hydroelectric, solar, etc.), carbon capture, utilization, and storage, recycling, and alternative fuels are just few examples of popular clean technologies.

CEMEX’s mission is to build a better future. To do that, however, we must address humanity’s most pressing issue: climate change. That’s why CEMEX’s sustainability program, Future in Action, counts on strategic by 2050. CEMEX Ventures attempts to connect disruptive sustainable technologies to CEMEX’s core business through its CVC investment portfolio and exclusive startup accelerator, CEMEX Ventures Leaplab, which focuses on high-potential early-stage startups. To learn more about the clean technologies CEMEX Ventures is investing in and promoting within the industry, keep reading.

Clean technologies in construction

Our 2023 perspective and strategy between these five focuses.

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage

One of the most talked about clean technologies making waves in the industry is carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), which are separate but connected processes that reduce carbon emissions in industrial operations before they are emitted into the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) consists of three key stages, whereas carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is compressed into just two.

The first stage of CCU and CCS is the capture of carbon dioxide from the gasses produced in industrial processes. This could be the emissions that are released from fossil fuel combustion or from the production of industrial materials, such as steel, oil and gas, or cement.

In CCS, once carbon emissions are separated and isolated from industrial emissions, they must be safely transported to a pre-established storage site. This is usually done through pipelines, but ships, trains and other industrial vehicles can also be used in the transportation. When the extracted CO2 reaches its destination, it is injected into a suitable storage site, which are often rock formations deep within the earth, or former oil and gas reservoirs.

Alternatively, in CCU schemes, carbon is converted into new products or services. Carbon utilization refers to the different technologies that use recycled CO2 as a raw material in the synthesis of green solutions that can replace fossil-based alternatives or reduce the use of finite raw materials. In this sense, CCU helps the construction industry comply with objectives related to the circular economy and the lowering of CO2 emissions.

Know more about CO2

Hydrogen

Made of one proton and one electron, hydrogen is the simplest element known to mankind. But despite its simplicity, the uses of hydrogen to the built environment are extensive. As the third most abundant element on earth, hydrogen has the potential to be used as a renewable, clean, and safe fuel alternative in the construction industry provided that it generates zero-emissions at the point of use. Currently, over 60 million tons of hydrogen are produced annually, and the global demand for the resource is forecasted to increase exponentially. Therefore, clean hydrogen production represents a lucrative opportunity for industry stakeholders looking to efficiently transition toward a carbon-neutral economy.

Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of different sources, such as methane, coal, or renewable resources like solar and wind. And although hydrogen is a colorless gas, a classification according to color– from green, blue, grey, pink, and turquoise–is used to describe different versions of hydrogen depending on the way it’s produced. At Cemex Ventures, we are focused on turquoise hydrogen as an alternative energy source.

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Industrial Heat

Historically, we have relied on fossil fuels to produce the high temperatures required in our industrial processes, but technological progress and recent innovations are giving way to more sustainable options. Industrial heat is one such example. It consists of replacing technologies that use fossil fuels as an energy source with those than use electricity instead. Depending on the sources used to create industry heat, deep electrification has the power to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions in industrial processes in the heavy industries.

Industrial heat generated from 100% renewable energy resources are key to accomplishing a sustainable energy transition, since they can be used in lieu of fossil fuels in a variety of different activities, from powering heavy construction equipment to cement production. Additionally, electrification is becoming more cost effective and more energy efficient. The uses for industrial heat in place of fossil fuels in the construction industry are boundless. CEMEX is currently working with startups to use electrification within the cement manufacturing process. The time is now to develop this technology and work with startups that produce electricity from clean and carbon free sources at scale. 

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Circular Economy I: Construction, Demolition, and Excavation Waste (CDEW)

Construction processes are long and complicated, with a number of different stakeholders and resources required at each stage. However, the correct management of resources, such as excavation, demotion, and construction waste, represents a strategic opportunity to contribute to the better management of construction processes and contribute to a circular economy.

Construction waste is generally any debris resulting from construction activities. This kind of waste presents a great danger to the environment, so proper management of construction debris is fundamental. Construction waste is usually a heterogenous mix of materials such as concrete, wood, asphalt, metals, drywall, bricks, and glass. Although they are usually referred to analogously, demolition waste differs slightly from construction waste in that it refers to the waste debris from the destruction of old buildings and structures. On the other hand, excavation waste is any waste that has been used and discarded as contractors prepare a site for building. These materials usually include soil, stone, and rock, and can be clean or contaminated.

Together, construction and demolition waste (CDW) account for more than a third of all waste generated in the EU. However, many of these materials can be managed more efficiently and reused in other areas of the construction value chain. However, contributing to a circular economy is so much more than just recycling, it’s also about reducing the number of materials used in the first place, to ultimately reduce energy consumption and waste generation. It is the responsibility of all construction industry stakeholders to manage waste responsibly and deliver it to its appropriate end-destination.

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Circular Economy II: End uses of different waste streams in Construction

Once waste from excavation, demolition, and new building sites has been properly separated and catalogued, it’s ready to be put to re-use. There are a number of different end uses for CDEW and other waste streams in the construction industry and beyond. However, in construction in particular, waste is often repurposed as recycled aggregates or alternative raw materials and in processes such as quarry restoration and limestone substitution. Recycled aggregates mean more than simply reusing waste streams, they reduce the overall raw materials consumed in construction processes, which in turn reduces the energy required to produce infrastructure from zero. Waste used to produce alternative fuel substitutes are also helping to lessen the construction industry’s dependence on fossil fuels and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Many of the industry’s leading building multinationals are prioritizing circular solutions that extend the life of products and materials by using or transforming them into value-added products. In fact, CEMEX recently launched Regenera, a business specialized in providing circular solutions by finding a new life for different waste streams. By finding new and innovative uses for waste in the industry, the built environment can conserve naturally finite resources, reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions, which currently contribute to 40% of global CO2 emissions, and mitigate its environmental impact.

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Discover the clean technologies

Clean technologies at Cemex

Every year, Cemex hosts its corporate event, Cemex Day, in which members of senior management present information regarding the company’s business performance, digital, financial, growth, and sustainability strategies, and other related topics that may contain important information to different stakeholders within the construction industry.

During the last edition of CEMEX Day (2022), Gonzalo Galindo, Head of Cemex Ventures, and Davide Zampini, Vice President of Global R&D at Cemex, presented a crucial climate action panel on Cemex’s plan for innovation and partnerships, one of the six pillars of its Future in Action program to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The plan consists of a sustainability strategy that leverages both internal and open innovation, in which research and investments will follow Cemex Ventures’ four strategic priorities–Green Construction, Enhanced Productivity, Construction Supply Chain, and Future of Construction.

Sustainability through open innovation

We are living in a decisive decade, in which the race to achieve critical climate action goals by 2030 is unfamiliar and arduous, and where we are faced with never-before-seen challenges that will require new solutions to be overcome. CEMEX’s objectives are clear, which is why its Future in Action program has set out an aggressive decarbonization roadmap with ambitions 2030 targets to achieve them.

Accordingly, CEMEX has pledged to maximize the contribution from its current decarbonization levers and to invest in R&D for breakthrough technologies. We acknowledge that we are only 7 years away from our 2030 goals, which is why we have our sights set on empowering startups and entrepreneurs in the construction technology space and increasing our investment portfolio with trailblazing solutions to be applied to CEMEX’s operations around the world.

Since its inauguration in 2017, CEMEX Ventures has experienced astounding success in innovation. Its current portfolio, with an estimated value of $50M, comprises 23 startups, including various Contech unicorns.

After the 2030 benchmark, CEMEX will launch a full-scale deployment of breakthrough technologies, which means the time to find new solutions that manage CEMEX’s sustainability, growth, and financial strategies is now. There’s no time to wait.

How is CO2 captured?

Point-source capture can be applied to a broad spectrum of processes that emit CO2, including facilities that produce fossil fuels or other products such as hydrogen, cement, and steel. Point-source capture is carried out by equipping an industrial facility with carbon capture technology to prevent CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. CO2 emissions may be present at a higher concentration in industrial facilities that produce cement, hydrogen, iron and steel, and ethanol, than in fossil fuel-fired power plants, so point-source carbon capture is a vital technology to reduce carbon emissions in cement production.

Direct air capture (DAC) with Storage is a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approach that extracts carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the atmosphere.

Direct ocean capture (DOC) with Storage is a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approach that involves removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from ocean water or other natural waters.

Once carbon dioxide has been captured, either by point-source, direct air, or direct ocean capture, it must be transported to a site where it will either by transformed into a new product or service, making up part of the circular economy, or where it will be stored.

CO2 transportation by pipelines is the most common method of transporting CO2. In the United States alone, there are over 5,000 miles of pipeline infrastructure stretching across 13 states. However, captured CO2 can also be transported by tanks and ships in its gaseous and liquid phases.

What is the best pathway once CO2 is captured – CCU or CCS?

CCU: CO2 utilization consists of using converting captured carbon into to clean fuels, chemicals, or products that can be used in the construction industry in lieu of finite raw materials. CO2 produced in industrial activities–such as steel and cement production–can be recycled and used as a raw material in a variety of processes that make up our built environments. Carbon utilization or conversion is an efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and develop valuable products that can help offset the cost of carbon capture.

CCS: CO2 storage consists of storing captured carbon dioxide onshore or offshore. In onshore geological storage, CO2 is injected deep within sites beneath the surface of the earth. Likewise, offshore geological storage involved the injection of CO2 into storage complexes deep beneath the seafloor.

Startups innovating in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage:

Carbon Clean: Carbon Clean is a global leader in carbon capture solutions for hard-to-abate industries. The company’s patented technology significantly reduces the costs of carbon capture when compared to conventional solutions and it has technology references across 49 sites around the world.

In 2020, CEMEX and Carbon Clean signed an agreement to develop an efficient and affordable carbon capture solution, and in 2021 CEMEX appointed Carbon Clean to work on a FEED study for a ground-breaking carbon capture project at its Rüdersdorf plant in Germany.

Carbon Upcycling: Carbon Upcycling Technologies or CUT was formed to “use the waste of today to build tomorrow.” The startup converts CO2 waste into performance improving additives for the building materials industry. CUT has validated its solutions for use in the plastics, coatings, epoxy, adhesives, concrete, battery, pharmaceutical, and consumer projects industries. In 2022, CEMEX Ventures invested in CUT to help scale CEMEX’s capability to emissions by up to 30% in its cement production process with the startup’s reduced-carbon clinker substitutes.

Carbon BioCapture: It’s no wonder that Carbon BioCapture featured on our TOP 50 Contech Startups List of 2023! The startup’s patented carbon capture business model aims to make fossil fuel-dependent industries more sustainable by capturing and converting CO2 into biomass and oxygen. The company has 15 years of experience in coal burning power plants and cement plants, and its proven technology provides a solution to the circular economy by converting CO2 into biomass that can be used to make green hydrogen, bio fertilizers, biodiesel, and animal feed.

KC8: Up next in the spotlight is KC8 Capture Technologies. KC8 brings low cost, environmentally safe, high performance CO2 capture processes to different industries across the globe. With over 20 years of experience, KC8 is focused on carbon capture cost reduction, and currently offers the safest and most tolerant solvent displaying the lowest energy pathway for CO2 removal available in today’s market.

Neustark: Last but not least is Neustark, whose solution is using concrete to help solve the global climate crisis. Neustark’s technology removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it permanently in concrete. This CCS startup sources its CO2 from biogas plants and works with concrete recyclers to store captured CO2 in concrete slabs, thereby reducing the need for cement in fresh concrete and avoiding new CO2 emissions.

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Turquoise Hydrogen

Turquoise hydrogen is produced through pyrolysis or thermal plasma electrolysis with heat produced from electricity rather than the combustion of fossil fuels.

This process also produces solid carbon as an output that can be used in other industrial processes or applications.

If the electricity used in the production of turquoise hydrogen is from renewable resources, it can represent a net-zero energy production process. CEMEX has been a pioneer in the adoption of hydrogen within the cement industry and aims to increase its hydrogen injection capacity in its cement kilns and other operations to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels.

HiiROC: HiiROC offers a step-change technology for low-cost, zero-emission hydrogen production. The startup produces turquoise hydrogen through a unique plasma process, making its innovative solution the required technology to enable the move to a ‘Hydrogen Economy’. HiiROC’s solution is economical, efficient, and scalable, and is currently working with CEMEX to increase its hydrogen injection capacity across its cement operations. Moreover, in addition to the creation of turquoise hydrogen to power industrial processes in lieu of fossil fuels, HiiROC’s process creates a valuable, zero emission carbon by-product: Carbon Black.

Ekona Power: Ekona Power offers a breakthrough technology that uses low-cost methane pyrolysis to convert natural gas into hydrogen (turquoise) and solid carbon, virtually eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions. Its industrial consumers include refineries, ammonia and chemical plans, emerging clean transportation companies, and natural gas transmission and distribution companies.

H2PRO: H2Pro is accelerating the global transition to net zero by enabling affordable green hydrogen this decade. H2Pro’s proprietary and revolutionary E-TAC electrolyzer systems split water with a breakthrough energy efficiency of 95%. H2Pro’s E-TAC (Electrochemical – Thermally Activated Chemical) technology solves the key challenges of traditional electrolysis by time-separation of hydrogen and oxygen generation.

HiiROC: HiiROC offers a step-change technology for low-cost, zero-emission hydrogen production. The startup produces turquoise hydrogen through a unique plasma process, making its innovative solution the required technology to enable the move to a ‘Hydrogen Economy’. HiiROC’s solution is economical, efficient, and scalable, and is currently working with CEMEX to increase its hydrogen injection capacity across its cement operations. Moreover, in addition to the creation of turquoise hydrogen to power industrial processes in lieu of fossil fuels, HiiROC’s process creates a valuable, zero emission carbon by-product: Carbon Black.

Ekona Power: Ekona Power offers a breakthrough technology that uses low-cost methane pyrolysis to convert natural gas into hydrogen (turquoise) and solid carbon, virtually eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions. Its industrial consumers include refineries, ammonia and chemical plans, emerging clean transportation companies, and natural gas transmission and distribution companies.

H2PRO: H2Pro is accelerating the global transition to net zero by enabling affordable green hydrogen this decade. H2Pro’s proprietary and revolutionary E-TAC electrolyzer systems split water with a breakthrough energy efficiency of 95%. H2Pro’s E-TAC (Electrochemical – Thermally Activated Chemical) technology solves the key challenges of traditional electrolysis by time-separation of hydrogen and oxygen generation.

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Startups contributing to deep electrification of the heavy industries:

Kraftblock: Kraftblock is a multifunctional Energy Storage for heat and power. Their solution enables heavy industry players to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energies and recycle waste heat. Their energy storage system has two main applications: it can be used as a Waste-Heat recycling system for the conversion and reuse of waste heat and as a Net-Zero Heat System to replace fossil energies with renewable ones. Kraftblock is using electrification to promote a heat transition away from fossil fuels to reach net-zero status by 2050.

Coolbrook: This TOP 50 Contech Startup of 2023 replaces the burning of fossil fuels with electrification powered by clean and renewable energy. Their technology electrifies steam cracking in petrochemical production and high temperature process heating in the production of cement, steel, iron, and chemicals. Coolbrook is bringing forward a clean new industrial era with their large-scale pilot projects, such as with CEMEX, that have the potential to cut billions of annual CO2 emissions.

Synhelion:

Synhelion produces sustainable solar fuels to decarbonize the transportation sector. But its technology can also support the decarbonization of cement manufacturing. Using solar energy, Synhelion generates high-temperature process heat beyond 1’500°C – sufficient heat to produce clinker without using fossil fuels. No CO2 emissions are released into the atmosphere during this process, as it is captured. CEMEX and Synhelion partnered up and successfully produced the world’s first solar clinker. Furthermore, CEMEX is also supporting Synhelion in scaling up solar fuel production.
Synhelion’s first industrial solar fuel production plant will be commissioned by the end of 2023 and its first commercial production plant will follow in 2025

Heatrix: Similarly, Heatrix is working to decarbonize high-temperature industrial heat. Their mission is to competitively replace fossil fuels in energy intensive industries by converting renewable electricity into storable, high-temperature process heat. Their solution combines an electric heater, which uses off-grid solar or wind electricity, with a thermal energy storage to provide continuous high-temperature process heat.

Electrified Thermal Solutions: Electrified Thermal Solutions’ Joule Hive ™ thermal battery converts and stores cheap renewable electricity as high-temperature heat. Not only does their patented technology reduce operating costs and CO2 emissions, but it paves a future forward free of fossil fuels.

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Startups managing CDEW to build a circular economy:

Material Mapper: Contributing to the circularity of construction, Material Mapper’s data platform allows users to buy and sell reused materials and aggregates. Their platform provides insights into all buildings to be demolished, rebuilt, and newly built to coordinate the reuse of CDEW. Its clients include municipalities, building developers, contractors, architects, and consultants, however, they also offer a variety of services from transportation and storage to CO2 audits.

Concular: Concular’s AI-driven platform matches demand with suppliers’ used materials, creating a circular process for the flow of materials. Concular is effectively helping the construction industry become more resource-efficient and CO2-netural through circularity and sustainability.

iNex: iNex Circular offers digital solutions for the circular economy with their platform that enables users to find outlets for excavated land, connect local waste producers and recyclers, or detect solar projects. They were recently announced as one of the TOP 50 Contech Startups of 2023, and are currently working in the biogas, recycling, construction, and solar industries.

Madaster: Madaster offers an online registry for materials and products that are used in real estate and infrastructure projects, allowing different stakeholders across the construction value chain to gain insight into whether used materials and products can be recycled after disassembly. Madaster’s solution contributes to a circular building economy by reducing waste and minimizing CO2 emissions.

N1: N1’s operating system permits users to identify recycling potential early, manage their material flows digitally, and implement recycling and upcycling work with a network of different partners. This startup is helping take the construction industry and circular economy digital with its innovative solutions!

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Startups giving waste a new life:

Néolithe: Néolithe has developed a new way to process non-recyclable waste. Their patented fossilation process turns non-recyclable waste, like CDEW, into mineral aggregates for use in the construction industry. Instead of burning or incinerating this waste, which is normally done, their groundbreaking technology creates a third option that contributes to the circular economy.

Unilite: This TOP 50 Contech Startup of 2021 has a patented recycling technology that turns multiple waste streams into high-performance lightweight aggregates. Unilite recycles waste such as textile sludge, water treatment sludge, waste incineration fly ash, and pulp sludge into inert construction products, creating zero waste in the process. By reducing landfill and creating valuable, high-demand products, Unilite offers an integrated approach to transition to a circular economy.

WtEnergy: WtEnergy is a clean energy startup whose novel technology transforms solid waste into synthesis gas to be used in industrial processes. They offer different industrial sectors a clean and potentially renewable energy alternative made from municipal solid waste and non-recyclable waste. A company in CEMEX Ventures’ investment portfolio and TOP 50 Contech Startup of 2023, WtEnergy’s valuable end-use for waste contributes to a truly circular economy.

Elemental Recycling: This startup uses a single step process to cost effectively produce high quality graphene and hydrogen from non-recyclable materials. Its patented technology uses waste materials that would otherwise end up in landfills or oceans and clean water sources and repurposes them into solutions that can be used in the production of renewable energy and other industrial and chemical applications.

Conox: Conox turns waste concrete into a glass suitable for a variety of applications. Waste concrete (the world’s most versatile building material) is generated at a rate of nearly 2.2 billion tons a year and accounts for 70% of all construction and demolition waste generated annually, which is why Conox has found an end use to recycle this waste stream. Conox’s proprietary product produces 40% less CO2 emissions that conventual soda lime glass production and requires less sulfate in the manufacturing process. It’s no wonder Conox was also named one of CEMEX Ventures’ TOP 50 Contech Startups of 2023.

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