Economy & Market

Blending Green and Grit

Published

7 years ago

January 9, 2019

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Blended cements are slowly but steadily increasing their presence felt in the market. With the introduction of composite cement, the industry’s green commitment is getting reinforced further.

Blended cements – Portland Slag Cement (PSC) and Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) – are making headway by cornering a major share of the cement market, nudging the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) which was the market leader at one time, into the corner, in the recent years. The exciting journey of blended cements has seen them taking an equal share of 50:50 in the late 1970s even before introduction of fly ash-based blended cement, only to lose share to OPC which touched 76 per cent by 1983, and to totter at about 30 per cent by the end of the twentieth century, it has now scaled the peak market share of three-fourths.

"Ever since government allowed blending of cement with OPC, there has been continuous growth in the sales of PSC/ PPC cement. There has been a very good penetration of blended cements in the market. Earlier OPC used to be the market leader in India. However, today, it represents only about 20-25 per cent of the market share. In this context, it is encouraging to note that nearly 75 per cent of cement production in India at present is in the form of blended cement of various types," says Raakesh Jain, Chief Sales Officer, Nuvoco Vistas Corp.

Blended cements have been gaining almost over the last couple of decades, particularly since introduction of fly ash-based cement, which combines the advantages of OPC on cost front, and strength and durability of slag cement, its blended peer. "This has been possible through education of customers on the merits of blended cement, which has led to higher awareness and increased usage," says Ujjwal Batria, Chief Operating Officer, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Limited.

With the introduction of composite cements, the market is expected to become even more exciting in the years to come.

Institutions still prefer OPC
Still, OPC is preferred in certain geographies and particularly by several institutional users, for various reasons. "While there is an improvement in the acceptance of blended cements, there are certain segments like RMCs, select infrastructure projects, where the preference continues to be for OPC due to the cost economics and flexibility available to the contractor," says Nilesh Narwekar, CEO, JSW Cement.

OPC grades 43 & 53 are more preferred in major infrastructure projects such as national highways, bridges, transmission lines, power plants, industrial and residential structures. "Also in major infrastructure projects, OPC Grade 43/ 53 is approved through the Central/ state government/ local governing bodies/ institutions over PPC/ PSC, making OPC a preferred product in institutional segment," says Jain.

Institutional customers have their own batching plants in most cases and prefer to do blending at their end. However, efforts of the blended cement manufacturers over the last few years in educating their customers on environmental benefits and durability they offer have resulted in their increased use.

Applications
Both PPC and PSC are environment-friendly cements as they use industrial by-products as an input. PPC classically uses fly ash, while PSC uses slag generated in the blast furnace of steel plants.

Blended cements are suitable for high rainfall areas and coastal areas as these offer higher longevity of structures, offering the highest resistance against sulphate and chloride attacks and environmental pollutants. PSC’s chemical composition gives it high compressive strength and offers excellent resistance to chloride and sulphate attacks. It boasts a superior finish and minimise shrinkage and cracks. For this reason, it is mostly used for marine constructions.

PPC’s hydration process is slower than PSC cement, therefore, making it suitable for mass concreting. It shows greater resistance to aggressive weather and is cheaper than PSC. PPC has an amazing pore refinement leading to an improved density of concrete, says Batria.

New kid on the block
Taking cue from the Bureau of Indian Standards’ (BIS) decision to permit manufacturing and selling of composite cement in India a couple of years ago, several cement manufacturers have already introduced composite cement. Composite cement is a blend of fly ash and slag based cement, offering the best of both worlds.

Composite Cement is being typically manufactured by companies where both these commodities are readily available. Eastern region is where most of the players have introduced composite cement by now. JSW has introduced it in Karnataka and in the east, while Dalmia Cement has introduced it in the eastern region, and Nuvoco already has a thrust towards blended cements.

"We have already introduced composite cement to our customers in Karnataka and more recently in Salboni. We also plan to make it the core product from Jhajpur, our upcoming plant in Odisha," Narwekar says.

Being a new product in the market, the manufacturers are already undertaking awareness programmes for their customers and influencers like engineers and architects. Composite cement is still not accepted in RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) by BIS posing a challenge in selling it as an all-purpose cement, besides getting government approvals for composite products.

Looking ahead
If one has to go by what the experts have to say, bended cements are going to be the future of cement industry, being greener and offering several advantages. Perhaps in the process of vouching for its future of cement in blended ones, JSW Cement, being largest manufacturer of PSC, is planning to take a plunge into blended cements headlong.

"We are planning to double our cement production capacity in the next few years to meet the growing demand for "Green" cement in the eastern region by a combination of brownfield expansions at our new facility at Salboni, West Bengal and Shiva Cement, Odisha. These projects are expected to be commissioned in various phases until 2023. We are also debottlenecking our plants in South and evaluating opportunities for a grinding unit GU in TN," Narwekar says. JSW is in the process of commissioning a new greenfield 1.2 million tonnes per annum plant in Jajpur, Odisha, which is expected to be optimizes by December 2019.

In order to promote sustainable alternatives in every area in line with India’s commitment at the Paris Summit, blended cements, which use factory waste and other by-products, should be encouraged through use in government projects. Thus, cement manufacturers, who are planning to increase their use of alternative fuels and raw materials (AFR), will be contributing immensely to sustainable manufacturing and sustainable products in future.

– BS SRINIVASALU REDDY

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

2 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.