Charah Solutions Inc., a leading provider of environmental and maintenance services to the power generation industry, announced that it has opened its first facility using new patented technologies for grinding granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to create supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).
This fully operational facility at the Port of Coeymans, a marine terminal located 10 miles south of Albany, N.Y., and 100 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, is accessible by ship, truck and rail, and is selling materials to concrete product manufacturers throughout the Northeast.
“Charah Solutions is one of the leading fly ash sales and marketing companies in the country, and we are excited to open this first facility that will supplement the cementitious materials we are already providing without the use of fly ash,” said Charles Price, president and CEO of Charah Solutions. “The Port of Coeymans is an ideal location for us to serve our concrete product customers across the Northeast. The opening of this facility continues to highlight the importance of our acquisition of SCB International last year and is the first of many facilities we expect to install nationwide.”
The grinding mills, which can be installed for a fraction of the cost of competing technologies and scaled up or down to meet market demands, allow Charah Solutions to serve customers in markets where the supply of fly ash or other SCMs is limited.
Charah Solutions’ technology is more cost-effective, regardless of the volume of SCMs needed, and is designed to be flexible, with the ability to add production capacity as a market grows. Additionally, Charah Solutions’ technology can also be used for grinding natural pozzolans to create additional SCMs to replace fly ash and to expand Charah Solutions’ byproduct sales offerings.
In addition to showcasing the new patented grinding technology, the new facility will manufacture slag cement that is marketed under the brand MultiCem. The MultiCem slag cement will be distributed throughout Charah Solutions’ MultiSource materials network, which is a unique, nationwide distribution system of more than 30 sourcing locations that provide ready mix concrete producers and other customers a continuous and reliable supply of SCMs, including quality fly ash and slag cement.
MultiCem slag cement is produced by grinding GBFS, a byproduct of steel production, and can be added in the production of concrete and cement. MultiCem slag cement provides strength, durability, improved finish, and consistent performance in concrete, and can be used at higher replacement rates than other SCMs, reducing the overall carbon footprint and decreasing the need for landfills.
“We are targeting both large and small markets, where the supply of fly ash is currently constrained, to rapidly deploy our technology,” said Scott Ziegler, president of byproduct sales at Charah Solutions. “We can be up and running within a few months and produce as little as 30,000 tons or more than 100,000 tons profitably. This compares to traditional vertical roller mills or ball mills that require significant capital investments, need large production volumes to be profitable, and can take years to obtain the necessary construction permits.”
