Turkey Cement Manufacturers' Association R&D Institute and HORIZON 2020 Program

Dr. Tülay Çağlayan Özlü / Research and Development Institute Director - Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği

A Success Story: Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği Research and Development Institute and HORIZON 2020 Programme

 

What is HORIZON 2020?

The European Union (EU) Framework Programmes were first established in 1984 to harmonise Europe's science, technology, policy and practices. HORIZON 2020, the EU Research and Innovation Framework Programme, will be managed by the European Commission between 2014 and 2020. Regarded as the world's highest-budget civilian research programme, HORIZON 2020 was created to shape the technologies of the future through international partnerships, with a total budget of EUR 80 billion.

Who Can Apply?

Under the HORIZON 2020 Programme calls, to which Turkey participates as an associated country, universities, academics, research centres, SMEs, SME associations, large industrial enterprises, public institutions, civil society organisations, international organisations and individual researchers can submit applications. TÜBİTAK has been assigned responsibility for HORIZON 2020 coordination in Turkey, with activities conducted by the National Coordination Office within TÜBİTAK. At the present stage, the Research and Development Institute within Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği, the collective voice of the Turkish cement industry, actively participates in the HORIZON 2020 programme and pursues intensive research and development work. The HORIZON 2020 programme topics, including waste utilisation in areas of reducing environmental impact, energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction—recognised as key issues in the cement sector—became our target for project participation. Under the "Waste: recycling, reuse" call opened under the EU HORIZON 2020 Programme, on the subject of "Waste 1-2014 Introduction to Circular Economy through Industrial Symbiosis", a consortium of companies from various European countries, including Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği's Research and Development Institute, submitted a funding application with the project proposal titled "Promoting Industrial Symbiosis through Extended Built Value Chain for Sustainable Resource-Intensive Industries (FISSAC)". In the first stage application made in April 2014, the project was selected among 19 positively evaluated applications out of 55 different submissions by the EU arbitration panel, and following positive evaluation of the second application made in September 2014, the project was approved for funding support. The project consortium includes 26 partner companies, of which 3 are Turkish firms. The project, with a total budget of approximately EUR 11 million, will run for 4.5 years and work commenced in September 2015. The project official website, fissacproject.eu, contains detailed information about the project. For detailed information about Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği: www.tcma.org.tr

Project Objectives and Intended Contributions

Industrial symbiosis brings independent enterprises together on the basis of using waste or by-products as alternative raw materials or fuel within a framework of sustainable and innovative resource use approach. The objective of the FISSAC project is to develop and implement an innovative industrial symbiosis model that will enable the transition to circular economy within closed-loop production processes through material use, by harmonising technological and non-technological requirements in raw material-intensive industries within the built value chain, using a zero-waste approach. The project aims to create collaborations between steel, non-ferrous metals, minerals, cement, ceramics and glass, construction and chemistry sectors in terms of European economic input and reduction of environmental impacts. Through such collaboration, industrial by-products or waste will be evaluated as alternative raw materials in cement, ceramics and wood plastic composite building materials production. The waste to be evaluated includes electric arc furnace slag, ladle furnace slag, construction demolition waste and ceramic and glass waste resulting from manufacturing defects in factory production, and secondary aluminium slag. Within the project scope, eco-cement will be produced through waste utilisation. Additionally, the industrial symbiosis network to be created within the project scope will be monitored through the ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) platform to be established. Within this scope, geographic information systems, optimisation and innovative network analysis indicators will be used.

Project outputs will enable the development of a waste utilisation methodology that reduces environmental impacts over the lifecycle in industrial applications, as well as a map-supported system regarding where waste materials can be sourced.

The project aims to bring a new perspective to industrial symbiosis projects conducted in Turkey and to increase industrial representatives' access to waste utilisation methods and implementation examples. Waste management and the reduction of environmental impacts from industry have been continuously kept on the agenda and developed by industrialists and scientific circles in Europe for many years. For this reason, the establishment and continuation of industrial symbiosis networks has become an important objective. In our country, good waste management practices are becoming increasingly widespread, and numerous implementation and research examples are evident. The industrial symbiosis case study examples within the FISSAC project will provide guidance to industrialists on waste prevention and reduction and will present an innovation in terms of promoting similar applications. The Turkish cement industry, as one of the most important stakeholders in waste utilisation processes, actively participates in industrial symbiosis networks based on reducing fossil fuel and natural raw material resource consumption and energy efficiency principles.

Tasks and Responsibilities of Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği Research and Development Institute within the Project Scope

1. Providing technical information on the cement sector to partners conducting lifecycle assessment of the cement sector. 2. Test and analysis work for characterisation of waste materials. 3. Laboratory-scale clinker firing tests and evaluation work to investigate the usability of waste materials in cement production. 4. Testing work for using waste materials as mineral additives in cement. 5. Establishing coordination with a selected cement factory for industrial-scale cement and concrete production work using identified waste materials. 6. Coordination work for conducting a sample application with the construction of 50 metres of concrete road. 7. Contributing to the dissemination work of project outputs. The project's 3rd General Assembly Meeting was held in Brussels on 5-6 October 2016, where work within project work packages was evaluated. At the meeting, the Research and Development Institute conveyed information about the results of waste characterisation work it had completed. Furthermore, at the Project Technical Meeting held in Madrid on 21 November 2016, the Research and Development Institute, as one of the project's most important technical partners, presented the necessary work to be carried out in the coming period. Türkiye Çimento Müstahsilleri Birliği Research and Development Institute, with its advanced technology laboratory infrastructure and technical staff, continues international research and development work within the HORIZON 2020 programme in addition to the solutions it provides in building materials.