Excitement builds as Innovandi Open Challenge enters crucial stages

The launch of our Concrete Future 2050 Roadmap for Net Zero Concrete in October 2021 signalled our industry’s commitment to fully decarbonise, outlining the pathways, levers and milestones required to get there. One of the key levers is innovation – the investment, research and development, and implementation of new technologies that will remove CO2 at various stages of the cement and concrete value chain.

The Innovandi Open Challenge is the latest GCCA global programme to foster innovation within our industry to tackle the climate challenge. Launched in May 2021, it partners GCCA member companies with exciting start-ups from around the world to accelerate and commercialise the development of promising decarbonisation technologies. This represents the first time that an essential global industry has launched a worldwide programme to accelerate start-ups to achieve net zero - demonstrating our sector’s commitment.

(Above: Geographical spread of GCCA members (white), Start-ups (Red))

Following the initial sourcing of over 100 start-ups and the subsequent pitching phase, we are very excited to reveal the 19 start-ups with which have signed NDAs with our member companies across two challenge areas. Under these NDAs, member companies and start-ups are now in advanced discussions to create formal working partnerships, which will result in final consortium agreements which we expect in January next year. From then onwards, GCCA member mentors and their start-up partners will be working together to develop their technologies ahead of a demo day later in 2022.

"This is the most exciting innovation programme I have seen across our sector, or indeed any global industrial sector. There are some amazing innovations in the mix here that will help us achieve net zero, and I can’t wait to move into the next phase. Congratulations to all the start-ups that have made it this far." - Claude Lorea, Cement Director, GCCA

The 19 start-ups that have signed NDAs are:

Challenge 1: Carbon Capture Challenge

1. Carbon BioCapture (USA) Point-source capture of carbon using algae without pre-treatment of flue gasses.
2. Fortera (USA) Process to economically convert kiln emissions into cementitious materials.
3. SAIPEM S.p.A (Canada) A leading company operating in the energy and infrastructure sectors providing engineering, drilling, and construction services across 60 countries. Recently acquired CO2 solutions Inc and now provides a unique enzymatic CO2 capture process.
4. Carbon Optimum (USA) Algae-driven CO2 capture and conversion.
5. Landsborg Group LLC (Russia) Amine-based chemical capture for flue gases, and liquid CO2 injection into ready-mixed concrete.
6. MOF Technologies (UK) Mechanochemical manufacturing process intended to accelerate the synthesis of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) using little or no solvents.
7. CarbonOro (Netherlands) CarbonOrO’s mission is to mitigate climate change by turning landfills or AD plants into a source of renewable energy or extracting the CO2 out of flue gas.
8. Minus materials (USA) Growing minerals for Portland cement and concrete using photosynthetic microalgae that sequester and store CO2 in biogenic limestone.
9. ZCU Partnership (Georgia) Scientific research team out of the Georgian Technical University, spearheading R&D related to carbon capture using zeolites.

Challenge 2: Recycling and Carbon Use Along Concrete Value Chain

1. CO2 Energy Storage/Real Carbon Tech (Poland) Sequesters waste CO2 to turn into methanol with 95% efficiency.
2. Alkemy Environmental (USA) Recycled industrial waste streams into environmentally friendly structural grade lightweight concrete aggregate.
3. FlexoFibers (Spain) Recycled Flexible Steel Fiber for Concrete Reinforcement.
4. Carbicrete (Canada) A carbon removal technology company whose patented technology enables the production of cement-free, carbon-negative concrete.
5. Carbon Upcycling Technologies (Canada) Patented CO2-embedded substitute for cement.
6. Arqlite (USA) Arqlite core technology removes plastic waste from entering landfills by transforming the waste into new green efficient building materials.
7. EVA (Israel) Developing a new supplementary cementitious material, partially replacing cement material.
8. iConcreteTek (USA) CO2 as admixture that improves strength and thermal properties.
9. Coomtech (UK) Specialists in cost effective, low energy, low CO2 drying technologies for the bulk-solids drying sectors.
10. Neocarbons (Switzerland) NeoCarbons provides industrial solutions for the effective remediation of effluent CO2 and/or for the economic production of high value-added chemicals via the generation of micro-algae biomass.

Congratulations to the start-ups that have been selected and signed NDAs with our member companies. We are looking forward to seeing these partnerships develop and exciting the breakthroughs to take place over the course of next year.

Stay tuned for further updates in the New Year.