Dear Readers,

A new year lies ahead of us, and after the past three years we have perhaps become a little more cautious with positive expectations and forecasts. Nevertheless, the first plans and foresights are already beginning. A number of interesting events await us in 2023. Some advance announcements can already be found in the current issue, such as the 65th annual IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Conference in Dallas, Texas/USA April 23-27, 2023 (see p. 28) and the Unified International Technical Conference on Refractories (UNITECR) in Frankfurt/Germany September 26-29, 2023 (see p. 8). Also the ibausil in Weimar/Germany will be held again on September 13-15, 2023 after a Covid-19 break, preparations are in full swing and updates on this will follow in the coming issues.

Also many new technical innovations are at the start. “Truck receiving station and dosing for substitute fuels for the rotary kiln in the Solnhofen Portland cement plant” describes the installation of a receiving station, the new dosing unit, and conveying equipment to flexibly and accurately dose secondary raw materials and feed them into the rotary kiln (see p. 36).

All industries, especially the energy-intensive ones, are currently intensively concerned with CO₂ management, as the need for CO₂ reduction to climate-neutral production is becoming an important and necessary task for the next two decades. In the article “CO₂ emissions: meeting the challenges for the lime industry in South Africa”, lime production in South Africa is comprehensively analyzed as well as the combustion technology and fuels used.

Don’t miss the interesting news in the Spotlight section (starting on page 4) as well as a number of other technical articles on current challenges.

Wishing you a good start to the new year

Dr. Petra Strunk
Editor-in-Chief