See you in Munich at Ceramitec

Dear readers,

Ceramitec will take place again in Munich from March 24 to 26. As always, the focus will be on professional exchange, as well as technical possibilities for increasing production and energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact. You can find a preview of some of the exhibitors and the lecture program for the trade fair on page 20.

Unfortunately, the biggest hurdles to climate neutrality in the raw materials industry seem not to be technical, but rather market-related and political. This became clear to me once again at the closing conference of the federal funding initiative “KlimPro-Industrie – Vermeidung von klimaschädlichen Prozessemissionen in der Industrie” (KlimPro-Industry – Avoiding climate-damaging process emissions in industry) in Berlin in February. We should therefore use the trade fair also to discuss what we can do to ensure that the green price premium is accepted and that reliable, long-term, and purposeful frame conditions are established.

This issue will convince you that we are already well on our way technically. The technical article starting on page 6, “Natural gas and hydrogen – what’s new?” Results from the laboratory and practice (part 1 of 3), deals with the question of how hydrogen as a fuel gas affects the industrial firing process and heavy clay products. It was based on a research project at the IAB Weimar by Dipl.-Ing. Regina Vogt, Dr. Matthias Händel, and M. Sc. Heidi Reichardt.

Further research news on projects that have been started, are ongoing, or have been completed can be found starting on page 42. Starting on page 50, we provide information about a new furnace from Fraunhofer IKTS that can be operated with both natural gas and hydrogen.

Uwe Grothe of Grothe Rohstoffe is pursuing a long-term perspective that ensures reliability with the new second managing director, Ralf Borrmann. I spoke with both of them about the background to this personnel change and about the company. You can find out more in the interview on page 34.

Further news, for example on Bongioanni’s absence in Munich, Wienerberger’s feat of doubling its profits despite hardly any increase in sales, and the successful transformation of brick grinding fines from Hörl & Hartmann into a raw material, can be found on page 58.

I hope you find this an entertaining and informative read.

Yours sincerely

Victor Kapr