Suvo lands Victorian offer to field trial low carbon cement

Suvo Strategic Minerals has been offered a chance to field trial its lower carbon cement made from kaolin in a government project to replace Victoria’s dangerous level crossings. The government agency leading the project  will also help Suvo navigate the commercial and technical approval processes involved to introduce its cement mixes to the marketplace.

The Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) made the offer to trial Suvo’s product  in a letter of support recently.

The LXRP is part of the Victorian Government Major Transport Infrastructure Authority and its projects fall under the banner of Victoria’s “Big Build” initiative to oversee a suite of the biggest infrastructure projects in the State's history.

In addition to  the LXRP, other projects include major new road systems or upgrades across the State, a new West Gate Tunnel as an alternative to the West Gate Bridge and about 6.5km of tunnels for the North-East Link that will connect Melbourne’s freeway network.

It also includes the Suburban Rail Loop to connect Melbourne’s middle suburbs by rail and a rail loop to Melbourne’s airport.

The LXRP is significant because its aims to eliminate 110 level crossings across metropolitan Melbourne by 2030 and will provide other rail network upgrades such as new train stations, track duplications and rail yards.

Suvo’s “hydrous” kaolin from its Victorian Pittong operation, 40km west of the regional centre of Ballarat, offers the company a rare opportunity to produce a reduced-carbon cement for evaluation via the LXRP field trials.

The company’s Pittong operation has been in operation since 1972 and is Australia’s only wet kaolin mine and processing plant.

Typical calcined kaolin cement blends have a clinker replacement factor of 0.5 which can potentially represent an embodied carbon reduction of about 40 per cent according to the company.

Calcined kaolin cement blends are seen as a significant modification to reduce the carbon footprint  and increase the sustainability of Victoria’s major projects.

Last month Perth-based Suvo received a Federal Government research and development (R&D) grant of $380,236 for its low-carbon cement research under the government’s R&D Incentive Scheme for its licensed proprietary “Colliecrete” geopolymer technology.

The company says Colliecrete has been shown to achieve a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of about 50 per cent in concrete production compared with concrete produced using ordinary Portland Cement.

Portland cement is manufactured using an intensely carbon dioxide emitting process, with about one tonne of carbon dioxide required for each tonne of cement produced.

In October last year, Suvo revealed it had entered into an intellectual property (IP) licence agreement with Murdoch University in Perth to license and commercialise Murdoch’s technology for a geopolymer concrete batching plant and its new low-carbon “Colliecrete” formulation.

The formulation is named after the source of some of the materials used for the local blend, which are derived from the industrial waste generated by the coal-fired power station at Collie in WA’s South West region.

The company’s low-carbon geopolymer concrete is manufactured by reacting aluminate and silicate bearing materials with a caustic activator such as metakaolin, fly-ash, finely-ground blast-furnace slag and other materials derived principally from industrial wastes to make cement.

Suvo’s new-tech geopolymer concrete is seen as a suitable replacement to the usual Portland cement binder, which has for decades comprised the traditional binding agent in conventional concrete.

Suvo said it plans to commercialise the Murdoch technology, initially by launching studies to upscale the pilot plant to produce Colliecrete and other geopolymer concrete formulations. It also flagged the possible inclusion of its Pittong kaolin and other waste-derived products such as furnace fly-ash.

Suvo has also established a collaboration with Melbourne-based Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials to formulate various low-carbon concrete mixes. The mixes will be formulated using low-cost hydrous kaolin supplied from Suvo’s Pittong operation.

The collaboration aims to develop concrete mixes in which up to 70 per cent of Portland cement is replaced by kaolin, which would be an important contributor to decarbonising major projects where vast amounts of concrete are typically required.

The collaboration’s initial formulation comprises a 50 per cent Portland cement replacement to produce a 50 Megapascal strength concrete with future plans, subject to test results, aimed at increasing the Portland cement replacement to about 70 per cent.     

Executive Chairman Aaron Banks commented: “We are excited to commence our third vertical for the business. Having successfully set up with PERMAcast and with further advancing testing in Indonesia with PT Huadi on our one-part geopolymer binder, we now look to create our “transition piece” – our calcined kaolin cement. Traditionally, you can swap out 50% of Portland cement with calcined kaolin, which is a great start, but first prize for us would be the ability to create a formulation removing up to 70% of Portland cement.”

Given Suvo is Australia’s only hydrous kaolin producer, the company potentially has a first-mover advantage to kick off up-scaleable production as soon as the formulations are refined and fully tested for strength and durability.

Suvo retains several options for its kaolin supply as a supplementary cementitious material.  It could partner with an existing cement company or it might consider buying Portland cement and manufacturing its low carbon binder, just as it already produces its other kaolin formulations.

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