The Portland route
business as usual18 900t CO₂
Cement bill index: 100
LC3 · Limestone Calcined Clay Cement
The future of cement is written in clay.
Lithora turns abundant kaolinitic clay into the critical ingredient of LC3 — a cement that cuts CO₂ by up to 40% and costs less than the clinker it replaces.
- CO₂ vs. Portland cement
- up to −0%
- instead of 1 450 °C
- 0°C
- of clinker replaced
- up to 0%
- tonnes of cement / year worldwide
- 0bn
Grounded in EPFL-led research·EN 197-5 (2021)
The problem
Concrete built the modern world. Now it costs us the climate.
Concrete is the most used material on Earth after water — and the cement that binds it is one of the largest single industrial sources of CO₂. Worse: the traditional fixes are disappearing exactly when we need them most.
Global emissions
~0%
of all global CO₂ emissions come from cement — roughly triple the share of aviation.
Locked in chemistry
~0%
of cement emissions come from limestone breaking down — not from fuel. No cleaner furnace can fix chemistry.
Scale
0bn t
of cement produced every year — and demand keeps growing with global construction.
The old fixes
−0%
EU fly ash supply by 2045 — and slag follows it down. The classic substitutes are a closing industry's by-products.
emitted by the world's cement industry since you opened this page.
Roughly 80 tonnes every second. Every year of waiting locks in billions more — the fix has to scale now, not in 2040.
The substitutes are collapsing
Projected EU supply of the two traditional clinker substitutes, in million tonnes per year — an illustrative projection from our market research, based on announced coal-plant and blast-furnace closures. A structural decline, not a cycle.
Fly ash (coal power)
Blast-furnace slag (steel)
Calcined clay — fills the gap (schematic)
2025
2035
2045
Calcined clay is the only alternative available in large enough quantities, in enough places, to fill the gap the vanishing substitutes leave behind.
The science
LC3: the same concrete, half the clinker.
LC3 — limestone calcined clay cement — was developed through more than a decade of research led by EPFL in Lausanne. It replaces up to half of the CO₂-intensive clinker with a blend of calcined clay and raw limestone, and reaches strength comparable to ordinary cement from about day seven. Since 2021 it is standardized in Europe under EN 197-5.
What's inside the binder
Composition by mass — ordinary Portland cement vs. LC3-50.
Ordinary Portland cement
≈ 0.9 t CO₂ / t via the clinker route
LC3-50
≈ 0.55 t CO₂ / t via the calcined clay route
Clinker
Calcined clay
Raw limestone
Gypsum
Portland clinker — today
1 450 °C
Limestone is burned until the rock itself decomposes — releasing the CO₂ locked inside the stone, on top of all the fuel it takes to get there.
Calcined clay — the LC3 route
≈ 800 °C
Clay is heated at roughly half the temperature — and the mineral itself releases only water vapour. Unlike limestone, no CO₂ is locked in the rock. And ~800 °C is low enough to fire with alternative fuels — shrinking the last CO₂ source too.
The chemistry is the whole trick. Burning limestone releases CO₂ from the rock itself (CaCO₃ → CaO + CO₂) — unavoidable, no matter the fuel. Clay carries no such carbon: heating it only drives off water. That is why LC3 cuts emissions where cleaner kilns never could.
The process
From pit to powder.
Step 01
Kaolinitic clay
Abundant, cheap, often the waste of brickworks and ceramics. Target: ≥ 40% kaolinite.
Step 02
Dry & grind
The clay is dried and milled to a fine, uniform feed for the calciner.
Step 03
Flash calcination
Heated to ~800 °C — low enough to fire with alternative fuels. The mineral releases only water vapour; the only CO₂ comes from the fuel, and we design to shrink even that.
Step 04
Reactive metakaolin
The heat rearranges the clay into a highly reactive binder ingredient — certified and quality-controlled.
Step 05
Blended into LC3
Our customers mix it with clinker and raw limestone — into cement that is cheaper and ~40% cleaner.
Case studies
The same building. A fraction of the footprint.
Pick a project and build it twice — once with ordinary Portland cement, once with LC3 made from our calcined clay. Same structure, same strength class. Only the footprint changes.
The LC3 route
with Lithora calcined clay11 600t CO₂
Cement bill index: ≈ 88 (illustrative)
7 300 t CO₂ saved (−39%)
like taking 3 800 cars off the road for a year
≈ €277 000 off the cement bill (illustrative)
same strength class from about day 7
Illustrative estimates: typical concrete volumes, 350 kg of cement per m³, OPC ≈ 0.9 and LC3 ≈ 0.55 t CO₂ per tonne of cement.
Your numbers
What would LC3 save you?
Drag to your yearly concrete volume and see what switching the binder would mean — for your carbon footprint and your cement bill. Same illustrative assumptions as the case studies above.
m³ / year
CO₂ you would avoid every year
2 450t CO₂
like taking 1 300 cars off the road
7 000 t
cement in that concrete
6 300 t
CO₂ today (Portland route)
3 850 t
CO₂ with LC3
≈ €92 000
off your cement bill / year (illustrative)
Discuss my project
Cement bill: ≈ −12% (illustrative)
Why now
Three forces, one direction.
The standard is ready, the carbon price is rising, and the old substitutes are running out. Everyone will need calcined clay — very few can supply it.
The standard is already here
EN 197-5 (2021) allows cements with up to 50% clinker replacement — and its CEM VI class goes as low as 35% clinker. No regulatory bet, no waiting: it's legal to sell in Europe today.
Carbon has a price — and it's rising
EU ETS free allowances phase out through CBAM between 2026 and 2034. Every tonne of clinker carries a growing CO₂ bill; every tonne replaced avoids it.
Share of clinker emissions paid at the full carbon price, per the CBAM phase-in.
−95%
Fly ash is disappearing
EU fly ash supply is projected to all but vanish by 2045 as coal exits. The substitute gap must be filled with something.
50%
Half the clinker can go
LC3 replaces up to half the clinker with calcined clay and limestone — with comparable strength from about day 7.
Green procurement pulls demand
Public tenders and EU-funded infrastructure increasingly specify low-carbon concrete — and data centres and green-certified projects follow the same spec.
The business
We don't fight the giants. We supply the transition.
Lithora doesn't build a cement brand. We supply the one ingredient the whole low-carbon transition depends on — to the independent precast and ready-mix producers who have no calciner of their own and are losing their fly ash.
Local clay
Cheap, abundant raw material from a nearby deposit — often the waste stream of brick and ceramics production.
Calcined at ~800 °C
Turned into a certified, reactive clinker substitute — that transformation is our expertise.
Priced below clinker
Sold under the price of the clinker it replaces — switching pays for itself from day one.
Clinker displaced
Every tonne sold displaces a tonne of clinker — the single largest industrial source of process CO₂ — and locks in the customer.
Green that pays for itself
Relative cost index per tonne (illustrative — clinker the customer would otherwise buy = 100).
Clinkerwhat the customer buys today
Lithora calcined clayour selling price
The customer saves ~25%— they switch out of self-interest, not charity. No green premium, a green discount.
Transport radius
Heavy powders travel badly. Inside our delivery radius we are structurally the cheapest — a local monopoly no distant giant can undercut on freight.
Deposit ownership
A proven, uniform, low-iron kaolinitic deposit near the market, with secured rights — rare even though clay itself is cheap.
Certification data
Accumulated performance data and inclusion in project specifications compound slowly — and are very hard to copy.
Multi-year offtakes
Long-term supply agreements cement demand in place and de-risk the investment behind each unit.
The radius, drawn.
Heavy powders don't travel. Inside the circle we win on freight alone — every distant plant pays its distance before it pays for anything else.
One Lithora unit — the basin
Independent producers inside the radius
Distant mega-plants — freight prices them out
The vision
Every tonne of clinker we displace avoids roughly 0.6 t CO₂ net. One unit, one basin, one region at a time — until low-carbon is simply what cement is.
Hungary — home base
Poland
Romania
Balkans
Where we stand
The science is proven. The supply is what we're building.
Lithora is early — deliberately. The recipe the world needs already exists; we are building the supply of its key ingredient, and our first partners get to shape it with us.
Proven
The technology
LC3 is validated by more than a decade of EPFL-led research and standardized in Europe. We don't have to invent it — we have to supply it.
In progress
The Hungarian clay
We are sampling deposits and running lab analyses with university partners to lock in sources with ≥ 40% kaolinite.
Next
The first batches
Joint trial mixes with early partners — the first Lithora product, shaped together with the people who will use it.
Buyers of powders think in spec sheets. So do we.
This is the product we are building towards — locked with our first pilot partners, then delivered with quality data on every batch.
LITHORA CC-40
Target specification
Materialflash-calcined kaolinitic clay (metakaolin SCM)
Feed clay≥ 40% kaolinite, low iron
Calcination~800 °C flash process
Heat sourcealternative-fuel-ready calciner design
UseLC3-type cements & concrete addition
Conformity pathEN 197-5 / EN 206 framework, EN 196-1 tested
Quality controlper-batch data: kaolinite %, fineness, reactivity
Calcined clay cement is already pouring, worldwide
🇩🇰 Denmark — FUTURECEM in commercial supply
🇫🇷 France — clinker-free cements shipping
🇬🇭 Ghana — world's largest calcined clay plant
🇨🇴 Latin America — LC3 plants in operation
🇪🇺 Europe — low-clinker ranges at the majors
What's missing in Central Europe isn't proof — it's supply.
Straight answers
The questions clients ask.
Do I need new equipment to use LC3?
No. LC3 is designed to work in existing batching plants and mixers — it changes the binder, not your process. Joint trial mixes establish the exact dosing for your own recipes before anything is committed.
Is it really as strong as ordinary cement?
LC3 reaches strength comparable to ordinary Portland cement from about day seven, backed by more than a decade of EPFL-led research. Every delivery is qualified against the EN test framework (EN 196-1 strength testing, EN 197-5 / EN 206 conformity).
Will my concrete look different?
Calcined clay can lend the mix a slightly warmer tone depending on the clay's iron content. We deliberately target low-iron deposits — and some architects specifically ask for the warmer shade. Test panels are part of every pilot, so you see it before your customers do.
I'm a precast plant — I demold in 12–18 hours. What about early strength?
The honest answer: at day 1–3, LC3 develops strength more slowly than pure Portland, and catches up from about day 7. For precast schedules that gap is managed with dosing, fineness, curing regime and accelerators — and finding your exact demolding window is precisely what the joint trial batch is for. We won't ask you to slow your line down.
Does it change water demand or my admixtures?
Calcined clay raises water demand somewhat — that's real. Modern superplasticizers handle it, and the trial mix tunes your admixture package before anything goes near production. Chloride resistance, on the other hand, typically improves — a genuine plus for infrastructure elements.
Can I rely on supply if fly ash disappears?
That is exactly the point. Clay is the most abundant SCM raw material on Earth, our source is local, and we sell on multi-year agreements — supply you can plan a product line around, not a by-product of someone else's closing industry.
What fuels the calciner?
Here's a quiet advantage of ~800 °C: it's low enough that the calciner can run on alternative fuels — biomass residues and waste-derived fuels — which clinker's 1 450 °C makes far harder. The mineral itself releases no CO₂, so cleaner firing shrinks the footprint's last remaining source. The exact fuel mix is finalized with the pilot unit.
What does it cost?
Less than the clinker it replaces — switching pays for itself, without a green premium. Exact pricing depends on your volumes and distance; the calculator above gives you the honest first estimate.
When can I trial it?
We are lining up pilot partners now, and joint trial mixes are the very next milestone on our path. Early partners help shape the specification — and stand first in line for supply.
Gergő Bernáth
Founder
Write to Gergő
Building Lithora from Hungary — walking the clay basins, running the lab analyses with university partners, and signing the first pilot partners personally. If you write, it's me who answers.
Your first step
Saying yes costs one conversation.
Send us your mix design
A one-hour conversation about your recipes and what you need from an SCM. Under NDA if you prefer — no commitment.
Joint trial batch
We test LC3 blends side by side against your current mix — we bring the material and the lab work, you bring one afternoon.
Pilot supply
First batches with full performance data — and a specification you helped shape, first in line when volume scales.
Get involved
Let's prove the clay — together.
We're looking for pilot partners among independent precast and ready-mix producers, university labs, and partners who want to be first into the gap.
Direct: gergobernath@lithora.net