THE EXEGY® COLLABORATION BETWEEN ECOCEM AND VINCI CONSTRUCTION HAS BEEN ONGOING FOR SEVERAL YEARS, WITH THE CREATION OF THE HIGHLY INNOVATIVE EXEGY®ULTRA SOLUTION

“A number of key projects have been carried out since 2013, including the South Europe Atlantic HSL and the Odeon Tower in Monaco. Together we also produced, for instance, 40,000 m³ of engineered concrete containing 50% granulated slag on the ENS worksite in Saclay in 2018, as well as the Marseillaise Tower with partners like CEMEX. One of the many other projects worth mentioning is the HEKLA Tower, whose foundations are made of concrete containing 60% granulated slag.

Little by little our teams worked on an innovative binder, the idea for which started out with a thesis co-funded by VINCI Construction and Ecocem. The discussions between Ecocem’s R&D laboratory and VINCI Construction’s materials laboratories proved very fruitful, thanks to the personal commitment of the concrete experts at both companies who got things moving.

The resulting ultra-low-carbon solution has been used on VINCI Construction worksites since 2019. First, it was used to make the six structural columns of L’Archipel, the VINCI head office in Nanterre. Then in March 2021, Soletanche Bachy (VINCI Construction), in association with Béton Solutions Mobiles, constructed an ultra-low-carbon concrete barrette to a depth of 17 metres as part of the project to upgrade Le Havre Port. Lastly, it was used in around 30 precast segments for Line 18 of the Grand Paris Express.

The end-result is the highly innovative EXEGY®_ULTRA solution, which substitutes traditional cement with ECOCEM ULTRA – an alkali-activated binder containing blast-furnace slag. In 2022, VINCI Construction and its partner Ecocem obtained a European Technical Assessment (reference no: ETA-21/0746) for this ECOCEM ULTRA binder, enabling its use on VINCI Construction worksites. Large quantities of the binder are being used for the Athletes’ Village worksite at the heart of Universeine in Saint-Denis (in the Seine-Saint-Denis department), as well as for the construction of two buildings with 71 housing units for I3F in La Celle‑Saint‑Cloud (in the Yvelines department), with 20,000 m³ of EXEGY® _ULTRA poured in 2022. This efficient and fruitful collaboration as part of the Exegy® approach has enabled Ecocem to develop low-carbon concrete solutions containing blast-furnace slag for use on worksites. Thanks to VINCI Construction, we’ve been able to contribute to the use of ultra-low-carbon concrete on major worksites, with significant volumes.”