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.

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.

If you want to know more about this carbon footprint, do not hesitate to contact our sales team at Yara:

Contact adam.reid@yara.com