On August 17, a research team led by Professor Wang Fazhou from Wuhan University of Technology, in collaboration with Huaxin Cement Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “"Huaxin Cement"), successfully developed a carbon-reduction technology and equipment capable of efficiently combusting low-quality mixed alternative fuels at a large proportion, along with a supporting digital intelligent control system for cement production. This technology and supporting system can enable the cement industry to achieve substantial carbon reduction. Recently, this achievement was selected as one of the excellent ESG cases of enterprises by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in 2025.
In the first half of 2025, Huaxin Cement cumulatively disposed of 2.12 million tons of solid waste, covering domestic garbage, municipal sludge, industrial hazardous waste, medical hazardous waste, contaminated soil, and floating debris. How to achieve large-scale consumption of waste while realizing substantial energy saving and carbon reduction is the goal of the joint innovation between Wuhan University of Technology and Huaxin Cement.
It is understood that the cement industry accounts for approximately 13% of the country's total carbon emissions. Among them, coal, as the main fuel for cement production, generates a large amount of carbon dioxide. Fuel substitution is an important direction for the low-carbon transformation of the cement industry. In many developed countries, it is common to use waste to replace coal in cement production.
At present, alternative fuels in China generally suffer from problems such as low quality, complex composition, large differences in combustion performance and calorific value, and high content of harmful components. Large-scale use of alternative fuels poses significant challenges to the cement industry and its processes. Under the guidance of the national "dual carbon" strategy, Wuhan University of Technology and Huaxin Cement and other units jointly established the State Key Laboratory of Silicate Science and Advanced Building Materials, focusing on the large-scale and stable utilization of waste.
To this end, Professor Wang Fazhou's team developed key technologies for the enriched utilization of high-chlorine and high-alkali ash and slag, solving the problem that cement kilns cannot operate when large amounts of low-quality fuel are used. They also prepared high-quality potassium salts and produced carbon mineralization products, achieving full resource utilization.
"In simple terms, this technology uses the calorific value of waste itself to replace coal, achieving large-scale and stable consumption of waste and substantial energy saving and carbon reduction in production while ensuring cement quality," said team member Yang Lu.
Currently, this achievement has been applied on a large scale in more than 60 cement clinker production lines across more than 10 countries covered by Huaxin Cement's business. Huaxin Cement's Huangshi 10,000-ton line, the world's largest single-unit cement kiln for co-processing alternative fuels, can consume 1.5 million tons of raw garbage and save 200,000 tons of standard coal annually.
This technology has been listed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as one of the "20 Advanced and Applicable Low-Carbon Technologies in the Raw Materials Industry" and has been evaluated by the International Energy Agency as a "model for industrial decarbonization in developing countries." Industry experts believe that the technology has reached the domestic leading and international advanced level. It provides an important technical path for the energy-saving and carbon-reduction technological transformation and upgrading of existing cement clinker production lines in China and for promoting the transformation of the industry's energy structure, and has promotion value.
