SaltX and Holcim Produce Portland-Quality Cement Clinker in a Fully Electrified Process, Replacing the Fossil-Fueled Kiln
Swedish startup SaltX Technology and cement giant Holcim have produced Portland-quality clinker using electricity alone, replacing the rotary kiln with a new Electric Clinker Reactor.
Editor's Note ·
- Correction:
- The article quotes Bengt Steinbrecher, Head of Holcim MAQER Ventures, as saying: "This is a strong validation of their technology." The full quote, as published by Chemical Engineering, reads: "This is a strong validation of their technology and an important step on the industrial scale-up roadmap for future cement production." The article's quotation is truncated inside quote marks, omitting the second clause.
Overview
Swedish greentech company SaltX Technology and cement major Holcim have jointly produced Portland-quality cement clinker using a fully electrified process at an industrial test facility in Hofors, Sweden — replacing the fossil-fueled rotary kiln that has defined cement manufacturing for well over a century. The result, announced on 29 April 2026, marks the first time both the calcination and sintering stages of clinker production have been carried out entirely on electricity, according to SaltX Technology.
What We Know
Cement production is responsible for roughly 8 percent of global CO₂ emissions, according to Down To Earth. Nearly 90 percent of those emissions originate from clinker production itself, split between thermal emissions from burning fossil fuels (40 percent) and process emissions released when limestone is decomposed during calcination (50 percent), with electricity consumption accounting for the remaining 10 percent. The kiln must reach 1,450 degrees Celsius to complete the sintering reaction that fuses the calcined material into clinker — a temperature requirement that has historically made electrification appear unworkable at industrial scale.
SaltX’s approach replaces the rotary kiln with what the company calls an Electric Clinker Reactor (ECR), described by Chemical Engineering as SaltX’s newly developed technology that eliminates the need for conventional fossil-fueled rotary kilns during sintering. The calcination stage uses plasma burners in SaltX’s electric arc calciner to heat raw meal, according to Global Cement. The calcined material is then processed in the ECR for sintering. Both steps run entirely on electricity.
The produced clinker met established Portland-quality standards, according to SaltX Technology. Portland cement is the most widely used type in construction globally, and compatibility with existing quality benchmarks is a prerequisite for any commercial replacement process.
“This marks a major step forward in demonstrating that a fully electrified cement process is not only possible but can be implemented in an industrial setting,” said Lina Jorheden, CEO of SaltX Technology, according to SaltX Technology.
Bengt Steinbrecher, Head of Holcim MAQER Ventures, added: “SaltX demonstrated that their electrification solution is able to produce clinker of Portland quality. This is a strong validation of their technology.”
Holcim, which reported CHF 15.7 billion in net sales in 2025 and operates across 43 markets with more than 45,000 employees, joined SaltX as a strategic partner in June 2025. The companies deepened that relationship with a Joint Development Agreement signed on 24 March 2026, establishing two parallel development tracks — electrified calcination and a combined electrified calcination and sintering process — and setting a joint technical and commercial roadmap, according to Global Cement. SaltX is listed on the Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market.
The sintering stage is the most technically demanding step in clinker production, requiring higher temperatures than calcination and posing the greater challenge to electrification, according to Chemical Engineering. Successfully electrifying both stages, including sintering, is therefore the more significant of the two milestones.
What We Don’t Know
The announcement does not disclose specific temperatures achieved by the ECR, energy consumption per tonne of clinker, or cost estimates for the process relative to conventional kiln production. No commercial-scale production figures have been provided; the results come from a test facility rather than a full industrial plant.
The path from the Hofors test centre to commercial deployment remains to be completed. Large-scale testing was planned for 2026 at the same facility, and the stated goal is to build Europe’s first fully electric cement plant by 2028, according to Global Cement. Neither a site nor a confirmed project budget has been publicly announced.
Analysis
Cement is widely classified as a hard-to-abate industrial sector because its process emissions — the CO₂ released chemically when limestone breaks down — cannot be eliminated simply by switching to a renewable energy source for heat. Electrification addresses only the thermal share of those emissions; the calcination chemistry still releases CO₂ regardless of the heat source. The SaltX-Holcim work addresses the thermal component, which represents 40 percent of clinker-production emissions according to Down To Earth. Eliminating that portion through clean electricity — assuming a low-carbon grid — would be a meaningful reduction in an industry that has few near-term alternatives.
The involvement of Holcim, one of the largest cement producers in the world, gives the project commercial credibility beyond a laboratory proof of concept. Whether the ECR can be scaled, deployed economically, and integrated into existing plant infrastructure at the volumes cement demand requires will determine whether this breakthrough reaches the construction sites where its emissions impact would actually be felt.