Some studies show that the use of lime in different manufacturing processes can reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere

Lime is one of the materials most unknown to citizens. Most people are unaware of the great number of uses that can be given to this product, which during the Covid-19 pandemic was considered an essential good by society. Lime, in different formats, is used in a large number of industrial processes, most of them environmental applications.

About 20 million tons of lime are produced annually in Europe. Cales de Pachs, based in Pacs del Penedès, is one of the most important producers. In recent years, the Penedes company has based its evolution on the search for new uses for this product, a fact that has earned it the recognition of the administration, both regional and state, for its innovative capacity.

The production of lime involves the heating of limestone (CaCO3) to transform it into quicklime (CaO) of great purity. In this action, carbon dioxide (CO2) is released as part of the chemical reaction, which is called “process CO2”. This means that lime production is inherently a carbon-intensive process, and that there is.

To try to adapt to European regulations regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases, the lime sector has been working on improvements in production processes for years. One of the most important is to enhance the ability of lime to capture CO2 from the atmosphere when it turns back into limestone. This process is known as carbonation.

Some studies point out that in certain applications, such as drinking water purification, the carbonation rate reaches 100%. This means that all the CO2 emitted when the product is manufactured is recovered when it is used to produce drinking water. This capture of carbon dioxide is permanent, which means that it is not re-released into the atmosphere, and occurs -in most processes- during the first year.

Possibilities for improvement

A study commissioned by EuLA (European Lime Association) points out that the natural carbonation rate of the lime sector in Europe could be, on average, 33% of process CO2 emissions that were generated at the time of produce lime In addition, the same work shows that it is possible to reach a 40% carbonation rate, if improved carbonation techniques are applied.

An example of this possibility of improvement is what happens with the application of lime in the purification of combustion gases (Technical Air, one of the star products of Cales de Pachs, has this purpose). In this case, the carbonation rate is 32%, but it can reach 64% if improvements are applied. It has also been shown that this process is effective in metallurgical, construction, paper and aluminum manufacturing applications.

Torrent learned from Valentí Grané about the company’s history, the products it makes and visited the Pacs del Penedès facilities

The Minister of Business and Work, Roger Torrent, visited the Cales de Pachs facilities, in Pacs del Penedès, a few days ago to learn about the company from Penedès that this year has been awarded the Ministry’s National Environment Award of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO).

Torrent met Valentí Grané, owner of the company together with his brother Xavier Grané, who explained to him how the company works and what the lime production process is. Grané emphasized the commitment that Cales de Pachs has made in recent years to excel in the development of innovative products.

The company from Penedes is one of the most important in the lime sector in the state. For more than fifty years it has been dedicated to the manufacture of limestone derivatives, with a special focus on those with environmental applications. Among them is the TECHNICAL-NET for the sanitization of sewage sludge (including SARS-CoV-2) or the TECHNICAL-AIR for the filtering and purification of fumes with sulfur, chlorine and fluorine contents.

Valentí Grané spoke about this type of product with Councilor Torrent, to whom he also advanced some future projects that the company is working on. Likewise, the owner of Cales de Pachs conveyed to him some concerns arising from the current economic situation, such as the increase in the price of energy, or the administrative hurdles companies are facing.

After a meeting at the company’s offices, Roger Torrent also visited the lime factory in Pacs del Penedès and the quarry where the raw material to manufacture this product comes from. The one in Pacs is one of the three quarries that the company has. The others are located in Vilanova i la Geltrú (Garraf) and Fátima (Portugal).

Roger Torrent and Valentí Grané met for a while after the visit to Cales de Pachs as part of the Business Night of the Business Federation of the Greater Penedès (FEGP), which took place at the Juvé and Camps de Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. During the evening, the lime manufacturing company received the FEGP Award for Innovation.

The company receives the recognition a few days after being awarded the National Environment Award

Cales de Pachs is lucky again. The Pacs del Penedès company, dedicated to the manufacture of lime, has received a new recognition, this time from the Federació Empresarial del Gran Penedès (FEGP).

During the Company Night, which was held on Thursday at the Juvé i Camps winery in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, the company from Penedes was awarded the FEGP Prize for Innovation, which endorses the commitment that Cales de Pachs has made in recent years to develop innovative products. The recognition was collected by Esteve Gaona, a member of the optional management of the company, who was accompanied during the event by the entire management team of Cales de Pachs.

The award ceremony was attended by the Minister of Business, Roger Torrent, who reaffirmed the importance of industry in Catalonia. “We want to reach 25% of the weight of the industry in our country. It seems to us an ambitious and possible goal that will allow us to generate wealth with a modern and green industry”, said Torrent.

Innovation to guarantee the future

To prevail over the competition of multinational companies, the company, founded in 1967 by the Grané family, has distinguished itself from the manufacture of common products (commodities) and has given lime new uses, basically with environmental applications. Treating water for human consumption and industrial and incinerator fumes, disinfecting waste water or sanitizing sewage sludge are some of the uses of the lime produced in Cales de Pachs.

In this case, the Spanish government has highlighted the work done by the Pacs del Penedès company “in the development and technological innovation in the search for sustainability”.

The Government recognizes the work of the Pacs del Penedès company in the development and technological innovation in search of sustainability

The Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has recognized Cales de Pachs with the National Environment Award ‘Lucas Mallada, economy and environment’. The Spanish government has highlighted the work done by the Pacs del Penedès company “in technological development and innovation in search of sustainability”.

The 2021 National Energy and Environment Awards, which have been restored after more than a decade, publicly recognize people or entities that have stood out, either for their creative, scientific, educational or social contributions in favor of the decarbonisation of the economy, or for environmental or climate defence, studies or promotion, contributing to the conservation and protection of environmental values.

According to MITECO, the Pacs del Penedès company has demonstrated with its activity “that the use of lime to absorb polluting gases and for the treatment of sewage sludge is effective in combating pollution, and is economically viable”.

Xavier Grané, owner of the company together with his brother Valentí Grané, collected the award on Monday at a gala held at the Ministry’s headquarters. In his speech, Grané highlighted the work Cales de Pachs is doing to compete with large corporations “developing products for niche markets, with creativity, ingenuity and work, that is, R&D”.

The owner of Cales de Pachs highlighted two of the products that the company manufactures in the field of the environment, such as MICROXICAL (focused on plastic recycling and the circular economy) and TECHNICAL-AIR (for the treatment of polluting effluents to avoid acid rain).

Xavi Grané also pointed out that this award “is comforting after a time when we had to suffer the pandemic, the energy crisis, and the increase in the price of CO2 emissions”. In addition, he took advantage of his parliament to demand that the B-40 (popularly known as the Fourth Belt) be ended once and for all “because it would save many tons of greenhouse gases that are produced by the congestion of the B-30 “.

For her part, the Vice-President of the Government and Minister for the Energy Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, recalled in her speech that “it is essential to have the commitment of all citizens” in the midst of the process towards a model economically and socially more sustainable.

“You represent the ability to do things in a different way and value the power of the citizens, of the small, of an active citizenry that knows what its scope is to build”, said Ribera to the awardees.

In addition to Cales de Pachs, they have been awarded the 2021 National Energy and Environment Awards: the Global Nature Foundation and the Oxígeno Foundation (National Environmental Award “Félix Rodríguez de La Fuente, nature conservation”, and Econward Tech (Maria del Rosario Heras National Energy Award). Eight extraordinary awards and two honorable mentions have also been awarded.

Bet on innovation and sustainability

Cales de Pachs is one of the business groups that has led a new conception of lime, investing in the research of new products. In recent years, it has developed multiple applications focused on improving environmental sustainability.

Treating water for human consumption and industrial and incinerator fumes, disinfecting waste water or sanitizing sewage sludge are some of the uses of the lime produced in Cales de Pachs.

The students of the subject of Industrial Mineralogy learn more about the application of these types of minerals in Pacs del Penedès

A group of students from the fourth year of Geology at the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona (UB) have visited the installations of Cales de Pachs in Pacs del Penedès as part of the Industrial Mineralogy subject. The aim of the visit was to learn more about the applications of so-called industrial minerals and the mineralogy of industrial processes.

During the meeting, a dozen students were able to learn more about the most technological aspects of minerals, with a special emphasis on those characteristics and properties that have a greater impact on their future application. In addition, they have been able to study the application of mineralogy in the research and development of different industrial materials such as refractories, cement, glass and, obviously, lime.

The group of students was not only able to learn about industrial materials from the point of view of raw materials, but also delved into the processes in which these materials are used. The application of mineralogy has also been analyzed in the research and evaluation of problems where mineralogy plays an important role, such as environmental aspects in the inertization of industrial waste, the valorization of hazardous and/or special waste or obtaining construction materials.

“With these visits, the student can face and solve both scientific and professional problems”, pointed out from the lime production company.

Cales de Pachs works together with different educational centers to develop new uses for lime, a collaboration that in recent years has allowed the company to develop some innovative applications, especially in the field of sustainability.

All over Catalonia there are already more than 200 companies that are part of the program and most of them belong to the industry sector

Cales de Pachs has been betting for years to adapt its business model to a more sustainable type of production. Throughout the last decade, the company has integrated respect for the environment as one of the fundamental pillars of its ideology, applying the use of green energy in its production processes and creating innovative products that respect the environment.

To further strengthen its involvement in the fight against climate change, the company based in Pacs del Penedès has joined the Program of Voluntary Agreements. The project, promoted by the Generalitat de Catalunya, recognizes companies that voluntarily want to establish a commitment to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).

The initiative started a decade ago and more than two hundred Catalan companies and entities have already joined. The majority (18%) are part of the industrial sector, but there are very diverse areas. In Penedès, there are already more than a dozen that are part of it.

Through the agreement that companies and organizations sign with the Generalitat, the entities undertake to monitor their GHG emissions and establish annual measures to reduce them. Thus, the Government promotes that the member organizations carry out active policies to diagnose and reduce their emissions in accordance with tested and controlled methodologies.

The Program pursues the following objectives:

b) Incentivize and promote the implementation by organizations of actions in relation to the fight against climate change, especially in terms of reducing their GHG (CO2eq) emissions.

c) Disseminate the action proposals and the results achieved by the organizations so that the experience gained can be useful for other companies.

d) Raise awareness among society as a whole about the feasibility and benefits of carrying out strategies to reduce GHG emissions

The affiliated organizations have a label in Catalan, Spanish and English, promoted by the Catalan Climate Change Office, which recognizes voluntary actions.

The series will include eight episodes, will premiere exclusively on Prime Video this 2022 and can be seen in 240 countries

In recent months, Cales de Pachs has become one of the locations most chosen by cinematographic companies that choose the Penedès as the setting for their projects. The company, a leader in the manufacture of lime in Catalonia, is included in the destinations offered by the Gran Penedès Film Comission label, which for some time has been promoting the territory in the film destination market.

The quarries of Cales de Pachs in Pacs del Penedès and Vilanova i la Geltrú were in 2021 one of the locations that most audiovisual companies selected as a set for their proposals. Fashion companies, smartphone manufacturers, music groups or film producers recorded there, transforming these spaces into unimaginable places, like a snowy mountain or a planet far away from Earth.

The last of the companies that has opted for the Cales de Pachs facilities as a stage has been the audiovisual production company Amazon, which in December recorded in Pacs del Penedès some images from its new series ‘Without Traces’. The project includes eight 40-minute episodes, which will premiere this 2022 exclusively on Prime Video, and can be seen in 240 countries.

Actors and plot of the series

Some of the actors participating in the series are: Carolina Yuste, winner of a Goya Award for best supporting actress in 2019 (Carmen y Lola, Hasta el cielo); Camila Soldi (Luis Miguel: The series, The exorcism of Carmen Farías), Sílvia Alonso (Until the wedding separates us); Borja Luna (Las chicas del cable) or Pastora Vega (Velvet).

The plot tells the story of Desi (Carolina Yuste) and Cata (Camila Sodi), a gypsy woman and a Mexican woman, who work in a cleaning service, and are fired from one day to the next. Overburdened and with just enough money to get through the month, they wait for a miracle to arrive in the form of a call when they are tasked with cleaning the house of the Rosellós, one of the most powerful families in Alicante. Everything is going well until they come across the corpse of a woman. After the initial shock, Cata and Desi realize that they have left everything clean. No footprints They are the perfect culprits. They are being chased by the police and also some Russian hitmen. There is also a family of millionaires and an ex-husband with ‘mariachis’. How will they get out of this mess? We will have the answer when the series premieres.

The Imuplsa Talentum XXI Foundation highlights the investment in innovation and sustainability that the Penedes company has carried out in recent years

The Impulsa Talentum XXI foundation presented this weekend the 32 awards corresponding to the 2021 edition of the Talent Chamber Awards, in a round of interviews and meetings that took place on Saturday and Sunday, at the Hub Cambra of the Chamber of Commerce, collaborating entity of the awards.

Among them, Cales de Pachs has received the Chamber Talent Award 2021, in the Energy Transition category. Valentí Grané, general manager of the company together with his brother Xavier Grané, has collected the award. The company has highlighted its satisfaction with this award, which recognizes the investment in sustainability and innovation that the Penedes company has made in recent years.

Cales de Pachs has been committed to finding new uses for lime for some time now. Over the last decade, in collaboration with several university centers, it has developed innovative applications for its products, mainly intended for the care of the environment.

In addition, the company from Penedès has been working with biomass in its production processes for some time, and currently has a project on the table to install a 3,000 KW solar panel park at its headquarters in Pacs del Penedès. The energy plant would allow Cales de Pachs to reduce its CO2 emissions by 32% and to make it a reality an investment of 2 million euros is needed.

The Chamber Talent Awards

The awards want to recognize people, projects, institutions and companies that stand out for providing imaginative solutions to challenges, problems and situations, which have been chosen by various juries, from the socio-health and care fields to sports , from industry to the media, passing through the transfer of knowledge or literature and performing arts. Among the most cross-cutting criteria are the use of technology, sustainability or environmental criteria, in addition to innovative, successful and disruptive projects.

Bru Recolons, president of the Impulsa Talentum foundation highlights the relevance of many projects, “which are a very outstanding advance in the use of technology and innovation to solve challenges and problems in our society”. In addition, Recolons explains that among the winners of previous years there are “startups that are now on top of everything, unicorns, and even companies that are listed in New York, which demonstrates the value of the juries and confirms the need to award the talent, to help its impulse”.

During the weekend members of the public administration passed through the Cambra hub such as the Minister of Justice, Lourdes Ciuró; the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Mònica Roca; the deputy for culture of the Barcelona Provincial Council, Joan Carles Garcia Cañizares; or the honorary president of the Welcome Talent Society, Antoni Gelonch, among many others, to present the awards to the winners.

The awardees have received the trophy that accredits them as this year’s winners in their category. In addition, they will be part of a business diagnosis carried out by the Impulsa Talentum Foundation for each of them to help improve the project from very diverse areas, in the preparation of a piece in report format, and in communication support through Catalonia Talent.

The quarries of Pacs del Penedès and Vilanova i la Geltrú have hosted various recordings of audiovisual content in recent months

Penedès is a territory with an unlimited offer of landscapes. In recent years, its privileged location has made it popular with audiovisual companies from all over the European continent, who find in the area a thousand and one unique locations for their recordings.

From the hand of the label Gran Penedès Film Commission, created by the company NODE Film Clúster with the aim of achieving a pre-eminent position in the market of filmographic destinations, the last few years have been shot in the Upper and Lower Penedès and the Garraf dozens of commercials, films, series and music videos, all with the same common denominator: having the Penedès as a backdrop. They have been involved from administrations to private companies.

One of the companies that has most participated in this new trend is Cales de Pachs. The two quarries that the company has in Gran Penedès – one in Pacs del Penedès (the company’s headquarters) and one in Vilanova i la Geltrú – have in recent months hosted the recording teams of several audiovisual production companies that have managed to transform these spaces in unimaginable places, like a snowy mountain or a distant planet on Earth.

In the quarries of Cales de Pachs, prominent fashion companies have been engraved, one of the leading companies in the manufacture of smartphones, music groups, film producers, and now a contract is being concluded with a large production company streaming content to record a series on.

An example of the possibilities offered by the Pachs del Penedès company due to the versatility of its facilities.

The agreement establishes that the path located in this location will be recovered but maintaining the safety conditions of the quarry enclosure

The Vilafranca City Council, the Pacs i Cales de Pachs City Council, have signed an agreement to recover the access path to the top of Sant Jaume mountain.

In 2011, Vilafranca City Council bought the land of Casal 2000, a rustic property located on the Sant Jaume mountain, from the La Principal-Casal Society, to develop sports and leisure activities . The farm is located on the southeast side of the mountain, and goes from the 240 m level, at the lowest point, to the ridge of the mountain, where it borders the quarry of Cales de Pachs SA, already in the municipality of Pacs del Penedès.

Close to the border between the two estates, in the last 20 years, along the ridge, a path has been built that was used by hikers and runners. But the presence of more and more people walking there, which increased considerably after the end of the first phase of the pandemic, made the Cales de Pachs company start the procedures in order to complete the perimeter fence at the southern end of the quarry, for safety reasons and in order to comply with the Mining Safety Regulations.

The perimeter fence prevented passage along a section of this road, and this caused complaints from some residents and users.

For this reason, Cales de Pachs, Pacs City Council and Vilafranca City Council have decided to sign an agreement with the main objective of recovering the footpath, and at the same time maintaining the safety conditions of the quarry enclosure. With this agreement, Cales de Pachs also undertakes to carry out an action to improve the landscape of the space, planting up to 120 specimens of white pine along the path.

This action is added to those already carried out by the Pacs del Penedès company in 2001, when it agreed with the society La Principal-Casal to install a protective fence, plant a large number of pine trees , the construction of 48 barbecues and the restoration of an old quarry located on the Casal grounds, among others.

It is expected that the action will be completed next November.