Concrete Admixture’s Carbon Footprint

Carbon footprint is a concern for concrete producers, and for the construction companies on their site. Using NitCal helps to attain a better carbon footprint as Yara uses state of the art technology in its production plants to reduce CO₂ emissions, such as the nitro-phosphate process, and also the reduction of N₂O by utilising its own proprietary catalysts.

Concrete manufacturing low carbon footprint

Concrete manufacturers and construction sites increasingly need to deliver environmentally conscious, low-carbon footprint solutions. With NitCal, you have a raw material that answers today’s environmental challenges. Indeed, our speciality nitrates for concrete accelerator admixture are produced in an environmentally-friendly way.

Yara Porsgrunn

For its own plants, including Porsgrunn in Norway where NitCal is produced, Yara uses the nitro- phosphate process. Yara has designed and developed a proprietary N₂O catalyst which uses small pellets made of cobalt and cerium oxide. Through a high temperature process in our nitric acid plants, N₂O is broken down into Nitrogen and Oxygen.

All Yara nitric acid plants, as well as those of many competitors now use this state-of-the-art technology. It has contributed to reducing Yara’s Carbon Footprint expressed as CO₂ emissions by 45 % from 2004 to 2010.

The carbon footprint of our Concrete setting accelerator

Yara’s N₂O catalyst technology reduces the Carbon Footprint expressed as CO₂ emissions per kg Calcium Nitrate (CN) solid material. While Yara production emits only 0.64 kg CO₂ per kg CN solid material, competing processes with N₂O treatment produce 1.0 kg CO₂ per kg CN. Without N₂O treatment the emission is up to 1.8 kg CO₂ per kg CN. The use of lower-emission vessels helps maintain this low carbon footprint even after shipping is taken into account.

 

Nelson Vargas
Director, Industrial Sales, North America
+1 813 222 5723