Cement is one of the cornerstones of construction. When mixed with aggregates and water, cement acts as the binding material to make concrete, one of the UK’s most-used building materials. Over 90 million tonnes of concrete are used by the sector every year, for projects from large-scale foundations and walls to garden paths. But to make concrete, you first need to make cement.
As a trusted supplier of high-quality cement products for construction projects across the UK, cement manufacturing is one of our everyday activities. Below, we walk you through how cement is made - and how we’re pioneering the production of evoZero, the world’s first near-zero carbon captured cement. You can also watch and listen to this information in our ‘how cement is made’ animation.
How cement is made
1. Limestone is extracted from quarries.
Cement production starts with limestone, the primary raw material for cement. We extract limestone from a quarry close to the works by blasting or ripping it using heavy machinery.
2. Limestone is crushed and stored.
The limestone is then transported to a primary crusher, where it is broken down and then taken to storage.
3. Limestone is quality checked before blending.
We check the crushed limestone for quality. Then, we prepare the secondary raw materials that the limestone will be blended with. Depending on the chemistry of the raw limestone mix, these materials may contain silica, alumina or iron. We may also add sand, fly ash, or other waste products from the construction manufacturing processes to get the chemistry of the mix just right.
4. Material mix is ground to produce raw meal.
Once the desired mix is achieved, it’s ground in a mill to produce ‘raw meal’. This is a finely ground powder that we then test to make sure the cement will meet the right classifications.
5. Raw meal is heated to improve its efficiency and quality.
From here, the raw meal enters a pre-heater tower where it’s heated to around 900°C. During this process, water and carbon dioxide are removed from the mixture, which improves its thermal efficiency and quality.
6. Raw meal is heated again - this time, to produce clinker.
Next, the pre-heated raw meal enters the rotary kiln where it’s heated once more for an essential chemical reaction to take place. At 1,450°C, the compounds in the raw meal react to produce clinker, the essential component of cement. To help reduce the amount of carbon emissions produced in this process, we’re using various alternative fuels such as recycled solvent waste and solid recovered fuel to increase the biomass rate in our kiln fuel mix. Alternative fuels can help to reduce fossil fuel usage by over 80%.
7. Clinker is cooled and tested for quality.
The clinker is then cooled and stored, ready for quality control testing.
8. Clinker is ground to make cement.
From here, we move the clinker to a mill where it’s ground to produce cement. At this stage, we add other raw materials including ferrous sulphate, limestone, grinding aids, and gypsum - the choice of which depends on the required cement mix or classification criteria.
9. Cement is stored, ready for shipping.
When the cement has been produced, we store it in siloes ready to be shipped.
- For packed cement, we use specialist packing machines to fill paper or plastic bags. These bags are stacked on pallets and then collated in warehouses, ready for dispatch to builders’ merchants across the country.
- For bulk cement, we use rail and road to distribute the cement around the UK, including to ready-mixed concrete plants. Here, it can be blended with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) like GGBS (ground-granulated blast-furnace slag), limestone and calcined clay to produce low carbon concrete. Our bulk cement is also delivered to packed product plants where it can be combined with other materials to produce bagged sand cement mortar, Postfix concrete, 40N concrete and many more products across our ready-to-use range.
How cement is made
What can cement be used for?
Cement’s a highly versatile building material. It’s primarily used to make concrete and mortar, but it’s also used to produce screed, render, and grout. Some of the most popular applications of cement include:
- Concrete foundations, walls, and floors
- Bridges and infrastructure
- Roads and motorways
- Paths and driveways
Sustainable cement production
As one of the pillars of the global construction industry, cement is needed in order to build the infrastructure, roads, and houses we rely on every day. But due to the high temperatures involved in heating the limestone, cement manufacturing produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. In fact, two-thirds of direct carbon dioxide emissions made in cement manufacturing come from clinker production. Even if 100% renewable energy is used for the manufacturing process, these emissions are unavoidable, and so carbon production is classed as a hard-to-abate industry.
How to reduce the carbon emissions produced in cement production
At Heidelberg Materials UK, we’re committed to finding ways to reduce the impact of cement production on the environment - a key part of which is CCS. Standing for ‘carbon capture and storage’, CCS is a tried-and-tested way of decarbonising cement production.
Carbon capture and storage is a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions at source before they enter the atmosphere. It’s then compressed and transported to be injected into existing geological formations deep underground (such as depleted oil and gas fields) or under the seabed for permanent storage.
Heidelberg Materials opened its first CCS plant in Brevik, Norway, in June 2025. It’s the first operational industrial-scale CCS cement plant of its kind anywhere in the world. Brevik CCS captures approximately 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, which is then permanently stored under the seabed. The amount of carbon dioxide captured accounts for 50 per cent of emissions from the cement’s production.
Heidelberg Materials UK is now building the UK’s first CCS plant in Padeswood, north Wales. When it’s fully operational, the plant will produce evoZero, our near-zero carbon captured cement, at a much higher capacity than Brevik. It’s a huge milestone in both decarbonising cement production and empowering lower carbon construction across the UK.
Find more information about our Padeswood plant by downloading our brochure or by visiting the Padeswood CCS website . For a more in-depth understanding of how we’re applying CCS to cement manufacturing, read our technical article: What is CCS technology and how can it be applied to cement production in the UK?
Alternatives to cement
Alongside evoZero, we offer a range of SCMs. Supplementary cementitious materials can be used as an alternative to clinker, which is the most carbon-intensive component of concrete. As a result, SCMs help to lower the embodied carbon dioxide of the cement while maintaining - and in some cases, enhancing - its performance.
GGBS is the most commonly used cement substitute. We offer it as evoBuild low carbon GGBS, which is part of evoBuild, our lower carbon product range. We’re also actively trialling a wider range of other supplementary cementitious materials to support the UK construction industry in reaching its 2050 net zero targets.
View our SCMs page to learn more about GGBS and these other SCMs, which include fly ash and calcined clay. You may also be interested in reading our tecnical articles:
How to browse and order cement from Heidelberg Materials
Now you know how cement is made and the availability of both more sustainable cement and alternative materials, you can start to decide which is best for your project. Read about all of the cement products we offer by viewing our cement page. For advice on cement mixes and how to choose the right one for your application, contact our technical team. If you have any questions about anything else related to cement, please complete the contact form below.