Germany: Sweden-based Thomas Concrete Group has acquired a five-plant Rhineland-Palatinate-based concrete producer. The acquisition brings Thomas Concrete Group’s German concrete capacity to 1Mm2/yr across six federal states, 2% of domestic capacity. Germany has 1900 concrete plants in total.
SK Ecoplant and CMD Group to deliver ash-based building materials
South Korea: SK Group subsidiary SK Ecoplant has partnered with CMD Group to launch pilot production of building materials made using up to 60% recycled bottom ash from waste incinerators. The partners say that an exothermic reaction in the presence of non-sintered inorganic binders and expansion-reducing reactants increases the compressive strength of the end product to match that of concrete containing ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
AJU News has reported that South Korean waste incinerators produced 2.16Mt of bottom ash from 9.12Mt of waste in 2020.
Holcim Romania acquires General Beton Romania
Romania: Holcim Romania has announced its acquisition of independent ready-mix concrete market leader General Beton Romania. The latter operates eight batching plants with a total of 160 employees. Its markets include Arad, Bucharest, Constanta and Sibiu. Holcim Romania says that it plans to use the acquisition to grow its ECOPact green concrete’s footprint.
Europe, Middle East Africa regional head Miljan Gutovic said “General Beton provides an excellent addition to our strong and diversified ready-mix concrete operations. Over more than two decades, General Beton has been a long-standing Holcim partner as well as a growing and highly successful business. I am delighted to welcome them to the Holcim family.”
Beton Catalan and Grapheno Smart Materials partner for reduced-CO2 smart concrete
Spain: CRH’s Catalonian ready-mix concrete subsidiary Beton Catalan has partnered with Grapheno Smart Materials in order to implement the latter’s graphene technology in its high-performance concrete products.
Beton Catalan’s quality director Alberto Arenillas said that the company’s high-performance concrete products require ‘a significant amount of CEM I cement,’ He said “By introducing the graphene additive, the nominal amounts of this cement can be reduced or changed to cement with a lower carbon footprint, improving its performance.” The company will sell the graphene-enriched concrete under its BeGreen reduced-CO2 products label.
