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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMARTSAND (Transforming fly ash waste from coal-fired power plants into lightweight engineered sand formultiple applications)

Teaser

Summary

ZaaK Technologies GmbH (ZAAK) is an eco-innovative SME dedicated to the development and exploitation of technologies which recycle industrial wastes into value added products. Our core technologies manage, treat and exploit industrial wastes to deliver environmentally friendly commercial solutions.
we have developed and demonstrated a unique patent-pending technology which transforms fly ash, a waste from coal-fired power stations, into a lightweight engineered sand, called ZaaKâ„¢Sand. This provides a superior alternative to natural sand, crushed stones (also known as manufactured sand), and lightweight fine aggregates (LWFA), for use in the building and construction industry and a wide spectrum of niche applications.

After water, sand is the second most used commodity in the world. ZaaK\'s aim is to arrest the depletion of dwindling natural resource of sand and thereby reducing the destruction of precious ecosystems impacted by sand mining.

Our strategy to rapidly maximize the replicability and scalability of the impact of our disruptive innovation, lies on setting up two beachheads to tackle two major markets: Europe and Asia. To this end we have been testing the feasibility of our business innovation conducting a customer/investor development actions in Germany (our headquarters) and India (our established Asian subsidiary).

Under the project we plan following:

To design and build an â€œIntegrated Pilot Plant (IPP)â€to produce the first batches of commercial grade ZaaKâ„¢Sand for pilots with customers in our introductory markets, with enough capacity to deliver com-mercial ZaaKâ„¢Sand at the end of Ph2: foreseen time-to-market is just 1 month
To use the IPP to further optimise the ZaaKâ„¢Sand process performance and cost.
To use the IPP as a demonstration showcase and to disseminate and communicate the project results and to attract new customers and investors to finance our Ph3.
Within the 12 months of our Ph3, we plan to scale up our IPP into our first industrial scale plant built in Ger-many. By 2023 we expect to be operating industrial plants in Europe and 2 in India.

Work performed

The pilot plant location was originally planned to be built in Germany, Berlin at Klingenberg
Power Plant (Vattenfall). The initial location at Klingenberg shut down in 2017. Throughout 2017 we have tried to secure a new location in Germany, but due to political uncertainty of running coal fired power plants in Germany in 2017 we could not secure a tangible alternative. Once known that the Klingenberg Power Plant will shut down, focus was to secure another location in Germany or Europe. Therefore, tasks focused on pitching to potential business partners and customers.

Despite the pilot plant not being built in 2017, ZaaK decided to produce smaller quantities of Smart Sand by hiring supplier facilities in order to ensure Smart Sand meets harmonized norms DIN EN 13055 (lightweight aggregates for concrete, mortars and mortars), DIN 13139 (sand size for mortars) and DIN 12620 (fine aggregates for concrete).

In 2017 the product was made available in small quantities to potential customers in order to test acceptance, gain valuable feedback and insights for product and process development once the pilot is established. This will form a good basis to fine-tune the process at pilot stage and customer readiness and awareness has already been established. This will make exploitation of results post-pilot more effective and efficient.
Also, ZaaK took part in several pitching events and other conferences to attract investors as well as potential business partners and customers.

Throughout 2017 several potential meetings took place to secure customer interest as well establish strategic partnerships in India, Europe and USA. During these discussions valuable expertise was gained for our commercialisation strategy.

Final results

We expect that we will be able to secure another location for the pilot plant and achieve the project objectives eventually. We know that once the pilot plant is there we will have a great showcase to attract investors and customers to build industrial Smart Sand plants in Europe and Asia. This will bring a unique building material to the market having both premium characteristics impacting the environment positively due to insulating properties, making a useful product out of the waste material fly ash and at the same time conserving the natural resource of sand. In Asian countries this will also mean the opportunity for creating jobs as well as a regulated manufacturing industry- For Europe this means strengthening ZaaK as a technology provider and developer as well creating local jobs by having a manufacturing business.