LEILAC, Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement, will successfully pilot a breakthrough technology that will enable both Europe’s cement and lime industries to reduce their emissions dramatically while retaining, or even increasing, international competitiveness. LEILAC will develop, build and operate a 240 tonne per day pilot plant demonstrating Direct Separation calcining technology which will capture over 95% of the process CO2 emissions (which is 60 % of total CO2 emissions) from both industries without significant energy or capital penalty. Direct Separation technology uses indirect heating in which the process CO2 and furnace combustion gases do not mix, resulting in the simple capture of high quality CO2. This innovation requires minimal changes to the conventional processes for cement, replacing the calciner in the Preheater-Calciner Tower. For lime there is no product contamination from the combustion gas. The technology can be used with alternative fuels and other capture technologies to achieve negative CO2 emissions. The project will also enable research into novel building materials with a reduced CO2 footprint, as well the upgrade of low value limestone fines and dust to high value lime applications. The high potential of the project is complemented by high deliverability. The requested grant will secure €8.8m of in-kind funding and support from the LEILAC consortium members, which include world leading engineering, cement, lime and R&D organisations. To accelerate further development, LEILAC will deliver a techno-economic roadmap, and comprehensive knowledge sharing activities including a visitor centre at the pilot site near Brussels. In order to reach the required 80% emissions reductions by 2050, CCS will need to be applied to 85% of European clinker production, and LEILAC is uniquely placed to allow Europe to achieve these targets in a timely, effective and efficient manner.

Lime (CaO) has been long proposed as an energy-intensive material for the storage of energy in a chemical form by means of carbonation/calcination cycles. This Calcium-looping process (CaL) is the basis of a proven pilot-scale technology for CO2 capture, which is accomplished by carbonation of CaO and its regeneration in a calciner reactor operated under high CO2 partial pressure and high temperature. The wide availability of limestone (45%) are achieved under new CaL conditions implying carbonation under high temperature (>850ºC) at high CO2 partial pressure compatible with high-efficiency power blocks. Moreover, fast calcination is carried out at temperatures < 700ºC by the Flash Calcination technology, which allows using mature and inexpensive solar receiver technology. Circulating Fluidized Bed reactors of proven efficiency. The new CSP-CaL integration yields high storage energy density (3.2 GJ/m3) with possible long-time gaps between load and discharge. SOCRATCES is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of this integration by erecting a pilot-scale plant that uses cheap, abundant, and non-toxic materials as well as mature solar and fluidized bed reactor technologies. SOCRATCES will confer the EU a leading role in the development of efficient and non-toxic CSP with low-cost storage (<12€/kWh) and LCOE <7c€/kWh. The consortium involves the full value chain, in a well-balanced distribution between R&D groups and companies

The Systems ITD will develop and build highly integrated, high TRL demonstrators in major areas such as power management, cockpit, wing, landing gear, to address the needs of future generation aircraft in terms of maturation, demonstration and Innovation.