More than 1400 degrees Celsius is needed to transform Holcim Ecuador cement and concrete

They are elements that are around us all the time; We build houses and buildings with them. It is about cement and concrete. And his creation process is broad, rigorous and advanced.

Holcim Ecuador, with more than a hundred years of experience, is the cement company with the largest presence in the entire country. Its functionality is permanent. They produce every day of the year.

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Raul Cabrera, Head of Innovation and Customer Solutions Holcim, explains the difference in terms. “Concrete is what is used to build; cement is the main thing”, he says and adds that the company was not born as Holcim, but as National Cement.

“In the 1970s, it was bought by the Swiss group Holderbank, and in 2004 it took over the name Holcim. Then there was the merger of two of the world’s largest cement plants,” says Cabrera.

It is about the global group Holcim Ltd. and Lafarge SA, which becomes Lafarge Holcim SA, as stated on the Holcim website.

This company has two cement production plants in Ecuador: one in Guayaquil, the largest in Latin America, where the heart of the company is located; and another in Latacunga, which is a milling factory.

How is cement produced?

Cement is the product of the production of several components, the main one being limestone, Cabrera points out and adds that it then goes into the kiln until it reaches a certain temperature. Other ingredients are added to the final product.

This is the detailed process:

It begins with the extraction of raw materials, from the quarry. That’s where the limestone comes from, says Alicia Garófalo, innovation engineer at Holcim.

After that, the limestone is transported to the working part where the process of crushing and pulverization begins. It is ground together with clay, which is also extracted from the quarry. This creates a very fine dust called raw flour or raw.

Then it goes to the preheaters, where a series of thermal transformations will take place. And there this raw flour enters the calcination, which is inside the furnace, an element of large size. It heats up from 80 degrees Celsius and reaches 1,450 degrees Celsius in a few seconds.

This is where clinker, the main ingredient for cement production, is born, says Garófalo. After obtaining clinker, the temperature of the material is reduced in the refrigerator and it is deposited in storage silos.

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Clinker is ground with other mineral additives, such as gypsum, pozzolan and siltstone, resulting in Holcim cement.

This is transported from the mill to storage silos to later be packed in bulk, in trucks, customer containers or bags, in various presentations.

Types of cement

Holcim Ecuador produces cement, concrete, aggregates and solutions for the construction market, as does its subsidiary Geocycle, which strengthens the circular economy through waste co-processing.

In addition to an integrated cement plant in Guayaquil and a cement grinding plant in Latacunga, there are ten fixed concrete plants in Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Manabí, Machala and Ambat, mobile concrete equipment, two aggregate plants in Pif and Daule, the latter being Loma Alta, the first factory with 52% women in its operations.

Sustainable mobility

Holcim has 11 light platforms, 30 tankers and a light fleet, which includes 46 hybrids and 22 electric, one 100% electric loader and one 100% electric dump truck.

“The cement industry is the second largest emitter of CO₂; This means that there is a huge liability in the cement industry and something must be done to reduce it. We as a company are working to reduce it, in many ways. Each ton of cement has almost one ton of CO₂ emissions; So, the goal by 2050 is to achieve zero emissions,” says Cabrera.

A few months ago, Holcim signed a contract with the company Renting Pichincha together with its strategic ally Grupa Lader. With this contract, Holcim Ecuador presented the largest sustainable fleet of vehicles in the country, which is environmentally friendly by 42%. This brings it even closer to its goal of decarbonization, adopting the most modern and innovative technology in all its processes and operations.

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