Cement production generates high greenhouse gas emissions. Oxara AG has developed a climate-friendly low-CO2 cement substitute. The ETH Zurich spin-off also offers an additive for the production of easy-to-use clay-based products.
Context
Gnanli Landrou comes from Togo, Thibault Demoulin from France, and they met in Zurich, while they were working towards their doctorates at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). They founded Oxara in 2019 with the aim of using their expertise to develop climate-friendly building materials. With their innovative processes, the two young entrepreneurs can fabricate building materials that generate 70 to 95% less CO2 during production than conventional building materials. During 2024, they have been looking for investors to enable them to expand their pilot-scale solutions to industrial production.
Technology
Oxara’s latest product is a binder that can be used like cement to produce concrete. The source material is mixed demolition waste, which can be reactivated using Oxara’s technology and reused in new building materials. While the concrete produced using the technology does not have the load-bearing strength required for bridges, it can be used for the load-bearing walls of multi-storey buildings (strength up to 25 MPa). Oxara had previously developed three additives for the production of cast clay and clay bricks. These transform clay into a modern building material, for constructing both non-load-bearing interior walls and floors, for example, and interior masonry walls made with clay bricks.
Maturity
Oxara building materials have a low carbon footprint, not only thanks to their innovative manufacturing processes, which eliminate the firing stage for clay bricks, for instance, but also because they recycle demolition materials. The young start-up has so far tested its solutions in the laboratory and in several pilot projects.
A pilot building was erected using all the Oxara products on the campus of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in autumn 2024, under the project name MANAL. The production and distribution of the cement substitute and clay additives will be handled by partner companies in the future. Industrial-scale production and marketing of the product should begin in 2025, subject to the successful completion of a new CHF 10 million financing round. So far, Oxara has raised just under CHF 4 million. The start-up is focusing on the Swiss, German and Austrian markets and sees particularly great potential in its latest product, the concrete binder.
‘We use “waste” materials from the construction industry to produce modern, climate-friendly building materials that contribute to achieving the 2050 net zero target.’ – Gnanli Landrou, CEO and co-founder of Oxara AG
This profile is taken from the second edition of the Cleantech Startup Overview, published in 2024. Read the full report here.
