Carbon-neutral cement tech co. receives ARPA-E funding

Queens Carbon, a startup company developing technology to eliminate CO₂ emissions from the cement industry, today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) has selected the company to receive $14.5m in funding as part of its Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program.

Queens Carbon will use this funding to pilot its novel low temperature, zero CO₂ technology in partnership with a commercial partner in the cement industry, according to a news release.

“We know that cement manufacturing requires innovative, scalable solutions to overcome the environmental impacts and logistical hurdles of traditional cement production. Queens Carbon is committed to tackling these challenges,” said ARPA-E Director Evelyn N. Wang. “Through SCALEUP, Queens Carbon will build on prior work funded by ARPA-E and develop an integrated pilot facility at an existing cement production site to produce carbon-neutral materials in support of decarbonizing cement production.”

Queens Carbon is developing an energy-efficient approach to producing carbon-neutral supplemental cementitious materials (SCM) from industry standard raw materials to enable an unlimited SCM supply for an increasingly urbanized world. Queens Carbon’s Q-SCMs are used to replace 20-50% of the high-CO₂ binder used to produce cement. The approach will meet the challenges of increasing demand for cement with a scalable source of SCMs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of cement and concrete products while remaining cost competitive. Queens Carbon plans to deploy a pilot plant capable of producing 10 tonnes of SCMs daily.

The SCALEUP program supports the scaling of disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy and industrial applications, ensuring that strategic U.S. innovations are well-positioned for commercial deployment and investment from the private sector. Queens Carbon’s project was selected by ARPA-E from a highly competitive pool of industry applicants to support the scaling of its breakthrough production process to lower the CO₂ emissions of the cement industry.