According to United Nations, 50 billion tons of sand is mined every year causing huge environmental problem on the local surroundings. For example, stripping sand from rivers leads to bank erosion and lowering groundwater while, removing sand from coastal areas causing shoreline erosions, threating biodiversity and islands disappearances. Unfortunately, these problems are only going to increase in the future as the rate of consumption of sand is twice than the rate nature produces it. At the same time, due to change in the climate and rain pattern production of natural sand is decreasing. Ironically, sand from desert can’t be used due to its geometry.
On the other hand, worldwide over 250 million tons of unused fly ash and related wastes are disposed or landfilled causing groundwater contamination, air pollution and sometime dam spill. Currently 256 coal-fired power plants are still in operation in EU, producing and landfilling or depositing ashes. Their gradual phasing out across EU will create the need for local employment support and their environmental legacy of coal ash deposition will remain; 150 million tons of pond ash tailings in the UK, 60 million tons in Eastern Europe and over 500 million tons of stabilised ash in Germany and Poland. There is a need for innovation that can answer to the socio-economic and environmental challenges in regions of operating, recently closed, or about-to-close coal-fired power plants in EU.
ZaaK Technologies GmbH (ZaaK) is an eco-innovative SME dedicated to the development and exploitation of technologies which upcycle industrial inorganic by-products and wastes into value-added building material. Our core technologies manage, treat and exploit industrial inorganic by-products and wastes to deliver environmentally friendly commercial solutions.
ZaaK's aim is to provide a high quality sand material from industrial inorganic by-products and wastes as an alternative to natural sand and minimise the depletion of dwindling natural resource of sand and thereby reducing the destruction of precious ecosystems impacted by sand mining. ZaaK has developed multi-awards winning patent-pending technology which can transforms fly ash, a waste from coal-fired power stations, into value- added engineered sand, called Smart Sand. It is a superior alternative to natural sand, crushed stones (also known as m-sand), and lightweight fine aggregates (LWFA), for use in the building and construction industry and a wide spectrum of niche applications.
The key objective of the Smart Sand project was to design and build an “Integrated Pilot Plant (IPP)” to demonstrate and optimise the fly ash to Smart Sand technology, attracting new customers, stakeholders and investors and generate income by exploiting the results of the action, to kick-off and finance our Ph3.
In summary Horizon 2020 gave ZaaK the leverage to demonstrate its Smart Sand technology by establishing a fully integrated pilot plant, develop its technology further to handle different waste streams and build technological and commercial competencies as well as partnerships to exploit the results of the Smart Sand project. By 2025 ZaaK’s plan is to have 3-4 industrial plants set up and running and at least 4 technology licenses sold. Thus ZaaK has set a new standard for engineered sand with the ambition to become a global leader for upcycling industrial waste by-products based in Europe.
