Markets

The competitive environment for concrete cement replacement material technologies and productized low-carbon applications consists of three main categories and the related players: traditional Portland cement and technologies to reduce emissions from its production, lower-carbon blended cements, and alternative binders such as alkali-activated geopolymers.

Portland cement production is highly energy- and emission-intensive and consumes a large amount of virgin raw materials, particularly limestone. Traditional cement producers are also exploring carbon capture in the cement production process to reduce CO2 emissions, but solutions are still expensive. One existing and alternative way to reduce emissions is to permanently sequester carbon dioxide captured from industrial emissions in concrete, which is a technological direction that Betolar is also exploring in its applications.

The second category consists of producers of low-carbon cement mixtures, in which part of the cement is replaced mainly by either ground granulated blast furnace slag or fly ash as a sidestream of the steel industry. However, the challenge for cement mixtures is that cement can only be replaced by blast furnace slag up to a certain point, which also limits the emission reduction.
The third category is alternative binders, which can significantly reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80% or more and reduce the use of virgin resources by replacing cement entirely with industrial sidestreams.

Betolar differentiates itself from its competitors with its business model and its flexible technology, which allows different industrial sidestreams to be used locally. Low-carbon shotcrete and concrete paste filling products developed for the mining industry are leading the market. Betolar also has a strong IPR strategy and continues to develop its AI platform to advance as a pioneer in sustainable materials.