Reclinker Raises £10 Million to Turn Demolished Buildings Back Into Cement Inside Steel Furnaces

Reclinker, a start-up spun out of the University of Cambridge, has raised £10 million in a Series A round to scale a technology that turns the cement in demolished buildings back into fresh cement, using electric arc furnaces that already recycle scrap steel.

The round, announced on 5 October 2026, was co-led by the Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures, with participation from the Development Bank of Wales, Kibo Invest, Zero Carbon Capital and Cambridge Enterprise, the university's commercialisation arm. Chief executive Bill Yost said the round was oversubscribed and argued that it showed UK investors are serious about decarbonisation.

The company says its process cuts the carbon emissions associated with cement by half at the same cost as conventional cement, with deeper reductions possible as the technology scales. The money will fund the move from industrial trials to full commercial production at a site in Cardiff, and support expansion to other steel plants in Europe and the United States.

Why cement is so hard to clean up

Cement is the glue of the modern world and one of its largest sources of greenhouse gases. Reclinker estimates that cement production accounts for about 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions, roughly three times the share attributed to aviation.

Most of those emissions come from making clinker, cement's key ingredient. Conventional production heats limestone and other materials in a kiln to around 1,450 degrees Celsius. The heat usually comes from burning fossil fuels, but the larger problem is chemical: when limestone is heated, it releases carbon dioxide as it turns into lime. Even a kiln powered entirely by clean energy would still emit those process emissions, which is why cement is regarded as one of the hardest industries to decarbonise.

Approaches under development include carbon capture at cement plants, alternative binders, new chemistries and blending clinker with substitute materials. Each faces challenges of cost, scale or acceptance in a conservative construction industry governed by strict standards.

A process born in a Cambridge lab

Reclinker's approach was developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge and described in a paper published in Nature in 2024. The method begins with construction and demolition waste. Old concrete contains cement paste that has already been through the kiln once. Reclinker recovers that paste and feeds it into electric arc furnaces that recycle scrap steel.

In steelmaking, materials known as fluxes are added to the furnace to remove impurities, forming a molten layer called slag. Reclinker's insight is that recovered cement paste can play that role. Inside the furnace, it is converted back into clinker-like material while the furnace continues to produce recycled steel. The result is two products from one process: new steel and the active ingredient for new cement, without a separate kiln, without quarried limestone and without fossil fuel heat.

Because the recovered material has already been calcined once, the chemical emissions released when limestone is heated are largely avoided. And because electric arc furnaces can run on renewable electricity, the process emissions can fall further as power grids decarbonise.

Proof at industrial scale

The company has already produced thousands of tonnes of its product at the Cardiff plant of 7 Steel UK, demonstrating that the process works in a real industrial setting rather than only in laboratory trials. It has also secured its first commercial sales.

Reclinker is targeting an emerging gap in the market. Concrete producers have long used ground granulated blast-furnace slag, a by-product of traditional iron-making, to make lower-carbon cement blends. As steelmakers in the United Kingdom, Europe and elsewhere replace coal-fired blast furnaces with electric arc furnaces to cut their own emissions, the supply of that slag is shrinking. Reclinker's product could help fill the gap, using the very furnaces that are replacing blast furnaces.

The investors and their rationale

The Clean Growth Fund is a UK venture capital fund focused on clean technology, while AP Ventures specialises in industrial decarbonisation and materials innovation. Andrew Hinkly, managing partner at AP Ventures, said Reclinker offers a scalable route to reducing cement emissions by integrating cement production with existing steel recycling infrastructure, and that its ability to consume a major industrial waste stream made it a natural investment.

The involvement of the Development Bank of Wales reflects the strategic importance of Welsh industry to the UK's decarbonisation. Wales has a long steelmaking heritage, and the shift from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces has major implications for jobs and industrial supply chains in the region.

A crowded race to clean cement

Reclinker is one of a growing number of companies trying to reinvent cement. In the UK alone, Material Evolution has raised £15 million in Series A funding to scale low-carbon cement made from industrial waste. Internationally, startups and established cement makers are investing in alternative chemistries, electrified kilns and carbon capture.

Reclinker's distinguishing feature is its reliance on infrastructure that already exists. Rather than building new plants, it uses spare capacity in steel-recycling furnaces. That approach could reduce capital requirements and speed deployment, although it also makes the company dependent on host steel plants with available furnace capacity and on a reliable supply of sorted demolition material.

Policy is increasingly supportive. Carbon pricing, procurement rules that favour low-carbon materials and border adjustment mechanisms in Europe and the UK are raising the cost of high-emission cement and steel, improving the economics of cleaner alternatives.

Lessons for India and fast-growing economies

The relevance extends well beyond Britain. India is the world's second-largest cement producer, and its construction boom, driven by housing, infrastructure and urbanisation, will require enormous quantities of cement for decades. At the same time, India's steel industry is expanding rapidly, with growing use of electric arc and induction furnaces. As Indian cities redevelop older buildings, demolition waste is becoming a significant environmental challenge in its own right.

A process that links steel recycling, construction waste and cement production could in principle offer a route to lower emissions across all three. Adapting such technology to Indian conditions, standards and supply chains would take time, but the underlying logic of turning waste into a resource aligns closely with India's circular economy ambitions.

For now, Reclinker's task is to demonstrate that its process can scale commercially and win the trust of builders and specifiers. If it succeeds, the company will have shown that one of the world's most stubborn climate problems can be tackled not only with new machines, but by using existing industrial assets more cleverly.