1st Global CemProducer Conference & Exihibition
14 - 15 March 2023, Munich, Germany
The first-ever Global CemProducer Conference on cement process optimisation has taken place in Munich, Bavaria, with 90 delegates from 20 countries, and a successful field trip to Heidelberg Materials’ Burglengenfeld cement plant.
Matthias Mersmann of KHD started the conference with a keynote presentation which asked ‘Which cement plant, and which future?’ He stated that the cement industry is in a period of revolution, which will continue for the coming decades. The UN suggests that the ‘race to zero’ will require investment of $125Tn by 2050, and Matthias stated that the cement industry will have to increase its investment in transformation greatly in the coming years. The problem is that the cement industry does not know the specific future that it has to plan for - and the technologies that will suit that future best, with (too) many options currently available. Alternative fuels, SCMs, calcined clays, alternative raw materials, post-combustion CCUS, calcium looping, oxyfuel combustion and indirect calcination are all options that will be used up to 2030, but beyond that the pathway to improvement is not clear. Pilot installations of many technologies are already underway, but even more innovative technologies still need to be developed. Cross sector couplings will be required to raise synergies for cement production and the use of the industry’s byproducts (including CO2). He concluded that the price of cement will probably double in real terms, but that cement is indispensable. The availability of local feedstocks, proximity to markets andto logistics systems, and cross sectoral connectivity may be among the most important influences on which technological solutions are chosen in the future. Matthias also briefly mentioned the KHD Pyrorotor Combustor for coarse alternative fuels, and also special processing plants for alternative raw materials such as wet and carbon-rich bottom ashes and other byproducts.
Dirk Schmidt of KIMA Process Control then spoke about some of his company’s products for the cement industry, starting with the Millmaster ball mill sensor for mill sound and temperature, and the Smartcontrol software which is designed to keep the operation of the ball mill as smooth as possible, even with multiple cement product types. Dirk gave some details of the use of soft sensors, fuzzy logic and libraries of rules to optimise control systems. Gastemp Flow is a new and precise acoustic device for measurement of gas flow and temperature from KIMA Process Control, with many potential applications throughout the cement plant. He also mentioned the now well-known Kilncooler system for water cooling of kiln shells, which is available in two versions, stationary or mobile.
Tobias Egle of SICK AG next spoke about the use of continuous in-situ gas analysis for DeNOx/SCR optimisation, in the light of ever-tightening NOx regulations worldwide. For some plants, SNCR is insufficient to achieve their emission limits, even with high ammonia use, and an SCR stage might additionally be required. Tobias mentioned a case study at Heidelberg Materials’ Geseke plant, which had some challenging process conditions and a hard target to meet. After considering a cold dry analysis, or a hot wet solution, the company decided on an in-situ hot analysis, using a GM32 UV-spectrum gas analyser. After a 12 month field trial, it was determined that the analyser could be used to control the SCR system, with no degradation of the performance of the sensor and low maintenance requirements.
Stefan Sommer of INFORM Software next spoke about approaches to reduce costs and carbon emissions in cement logistics. He pointed out that cement truck logistics can be responsible for significant carbon emissions, and that every kilometre that a truck drives when it is empty is a waste of money - literally. Optimising the routing of a fleet of cement trucks (and a company might have hundreds of trucks, serving multiple plants and hundreds more customers) can dramatically reduce carbon emissions and can add very substantially to the bottom line. Stefan also pointed out that optimised despatching must also now include the performance characteristics of electrical vehicles in their calculations. INFORM has algorithm-based software that can intelligently optimise truck logistics for the cement industry.
Loïc Pottier of Fives FCB mentioned several key technologies to reduce CO2 emissions from the cement industry. The FCB Horomill claims to be the grinding mill with the lowest CO2 emissions, with low energy consumption compared to ball mills and vertical roller mills. He pointed out that up to 80% of the total heat input of a cement plant is possible with biomass, and this can be achieved with a variety of technologies offered by his company. The FCB clay flash calciner has been developed to maximise the reactivity of the metakaolin product, while also separately controlling the colour of the product. The FCB Rhodax crusher can be used for concrete recycling and produces a number of fractions, including gravel, carbonated sand and an alternative raw material for clinker production. All of these approaches will incrementally reduce the CO2 footprint of the final cement produced, down to around 350kgCO2/t cement. Fives FCB is developing process knowledge in oxycombustion and sequestration mineralisation, in preparedness for the uptake of CCS.
Peter Steinkellner of RHI Magnesita next spoke about future-proof refractories for cement production. He first pointed out the similarities between the cement and refractory industries: both use carbonated raw materials, and are fired in a rotary kiln, so that both are CO2 emitters. RHI Magnesita has its own raw material mines, which means that it is responsible for significant emissions, 4.2Mt of CO2 in 2022. However, the CO2 intensity of the refractories has been dropping, from 1.9t CO2/t of refractory in 2018, to 1.75t in 2022. Means to reduce carbon intensity include recycling, non-carbonate-based raw materials, electrification and green fuels, research for which has been backed by an investment by the company of Euro50m. The company wants to significantly increase the use of recycled refractory materials in its manufacturing, since the use of virgin materials is highly carbon intensive. RHI Magnesita has formed a JV with Horn & Co in Europe to collect and process used refractories. The refractories are sorted into their basic different types, prior to crushing and washing to remove alkalis including chlorides and sulphites. The sorting stage is currently manual, but is in the process of being automated using LIBS and robots. The company guarantees comparable performance from virgin and recycled recycled products.
Adebiyi Adewole of DALOG Diagnosesysteme GmbH next spoke about innovative condition monitoring solutions for the cement industry. Having had a background in the cement industry in Nigeria and Malaysia, Adebiyi said that he knows how maintenance can work ‘in the field,’ where an engineer may roam about the plant, feeling in his or her guts in terms of sounds and perceived temperatures whether or not a piece of equipment is ‘well’ or not. This is not a sensible means for maintenance. The only sensible way forward is by using sensors to give hard data, and by processing that data to predict failures and to act on those data-based predictions to prevent failures and avoid unplanned downtime. He gave details of a case study at Votorantim North America, which showed how the DALOG system can be used to understand root-causes for problems and to keep the plant running.
Delegates then enjoyed a ‘speed-dating’ networking session, one of several very popular networking sessions spread through the programme.
Klaus Holz of Fuchs Petrolub SE next spoke about an interesting application of the company’s chemicals, in order to suppress dust exposure in quarries. One product can be sprayed into the air to take dust out of the air, one can hold down dust that is on the ground, and another locks down dust almost permanently. The combined binder and wetter chemicals were tested at a quarry that had suffered from high dust during hot weather, when simple water sprays had dried out too quickly. The dust-suppressant agglomerates potential dust particles into larger aggregates, so that they do not become airborne. Klaus showed how the Renoclean Air Hold-down suppressant reduced airborne dust for several hours compared to plain water, so that water-use can be reduced to less than 10% for the same effect, while at the same time also reducing diesel use.
Scott Ziegler of CemAI, all the way from the USA, mentioned that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last 10 years, and that each cement plant creates about 1Tb of data each year. Scott spoke about how AI can be used to avoid downtime and improve availability, and he pointed out that if you can hear, smell or see a fault, then it is already too late to avoid downtime and additional expense. CemAI’s system is trained with real data or with data from a digital twin, and will then generate alarms if the sensor data from the real plant strays outside of what is expected.
Charles Huguet of Enertime spoke about how to increase the profitability of waste heat recovery projects. Enertime produces some components for WHR projects, but also acts as an integrator and supplier of full WHR plants, as well as for heat pumps and other turbo-machinery. Charles pointed out that power and fuel costs comprise around 22% of the total cost of cement production, although this has fluctuated (and increased) dramatically in the recent past. Reduction of overall power cost is a powerful incentive towards WHR, although cement producers are understandably reluctant to become power producers themselves. For this reason, cement industry WHR projects are generally financed by the WHR system supplier, on the basis that the cement plant supplies the project with waste heat on a long-term basis. Two Enertime WHR projects are currently underway in the cement industry in Europe, with another expected soon.
After the end of the programme on the first day, delegates enjoyed an evening social event in the famous Münchner Stubn restaurant, with local food and drink, and much networking and discussion.
Day two
Bodil Recke of FLSmidth started the second day of the conference by pointing out the means by which cement producers can accelerate their ‘transition to green.’ Bodil pointed out that most cement plants will not have to capture their full nominal CO2 output, and instead will be able to reduce their CO2 emissions through using biogenic alternative fuels, by using SCMs, by using calcined clays, by reducing the clinker factor, through process optimisation and by other means, leaving a much-reduced amount of CO2 to be captured and sequestered. FLSmidth clay calcination plants are under construction in Accra, Ghana and in Xeuilley, France. CBI Ghana is a grinding plant which has decided to build a clay calcination plant to extend its production. The new Fuelflex Pyrolyser from FLSmidth will allow greater use of alternative fuels, while reducing NOx emissions. The pyrolyser takes the hot meal from the lowest pre-heating cyclone and uses it as a gasification medium to use alternative fuels. The meal is fluidised by air pulsation and moves with the hot gas to the calciner. NOx is controlled by ‘re-burning’ rotary kiln NOx, and by reducing calciner NOx formation by limiting access to oxygen when burning. Vapourised waste is used instead of expensive ammonia for NOx reduction. Bodil concluded that there is not a ‘one solution fits all’ answer to the ‘which technology?’ question, that local SCMs will be crucial, that technological solutions already exist and that new cement formulations will need to be approved more quickly in the future.
Tarek Nasr next spoke about an interesting problem encountered at a cement plant in Germany. During the operation of a cement ball mill, acoustic vibration was noticed in residential housing around 200m from the mill, with 65Hz vibrations transmitted not through the air but through the soil around the mill foundations. It was decided that the mill foundations should be clamped using a heavy steel external tension rod and concrete compression member to reduce horizontal vibrations. Unfortunately, this did not work to reduce the vibrations. Other experts suggested isolating the foundations by using a spring and damper elements, at a cost of up to Euro2m. Instead, it was decided to alter the stiffness and thus natural frequency of the mill foundation by using screw piles and by using a tension/compression member and extension of the foundation slab. Through these means the horizontal oscillation was reduced to negligible values, at one tenth of the cost of other proposed options.
André Schmid of Schaeffler next spoke about predictive maintenance and smart lubrication to improve availability. André suggested that the vast majority of motors in a cement plant are simply not monitored. The main cause of motor failure is due to lubrication failure or contamination, or due to overload or premature fatigue, or due to mis-installation. He suggested that humans are a major factor in lubrication failure, as well as ‘missing’ digitalisation. André’s suggestion is the roll-out of hundreds of easy-to-install sensors around the plant, all reporting to a single digital platform, which can direct lubrication units to apply lubricant whenever and wherever it’s needed. He suggested that the payback time in some cases has been a matter of a few months.
David Boyd of Carbon Re started by quoting cyberspace futurist William Gibson: “The future is already near, it is just not evenly distributed.” He suggested that AI-augmented energy optimisation could have a significant impact on cement industry CO2 emissions by 2030. In order to make the situation less scary and more easily understandable, AI might be better called ‘maths’ and algorithms might best be seen as equations written by computers, to do a job specified by a human. Many new players are using sophisticated maths to address problems in the industry. Carbon Re analyses datasets already being generated by cement plants and makes suggestions to the control room operator as to how to improve the pyroprocess. David also mentioned the concept of AI-augments SCMs, where maths is used to try to gain synergies from using mixes of different alternative materials.
Ryan Koorts of ABB spoke about the Ability(tm) Expert Optimiser system. Sensors connected magnetically to the ball mill body will sense the full spectrum of vibrations and transfer the information to an off-mill base station. The EO system can then use the data to optimise the mill. Other sensors feed the EO system with data from the rest of the plant, allowing the control system to reduce emissions and energy consumption, and to maximise production and product quality. Jiri Strapina, plant manager of the Heidelberg Materials Mokrá cement plant in Czechia, gave a virtual presentation within Ryan’s speech, about the installation of the EO system, and the plant’s plans to expand use of the system in the future.
Simeon Fahrner of Axians IAS next spoke about future-proof logistics in the cement plant. Digitalisation can reduce error-prone manual processes, particularly data-entry, as well as avoiding dependency on single persons. Transforming the truck driver check-in process to a fully digitised flow, from arrival at the cement plant, through product loading and through to truck departure, can eliminate errors and can maximise plant throughput (while reducing driver delays).
Robert Morris, head of PREMAS, from Aumund, next spoke about preventative maintenance services, most specifically on preventative and predictive maintenance. Robert mentioned a case study at Cementeria Constantinopoli in Italy, which had bought six machines from Aumund, including bucket elevators, a pan conveyor and a Centrex discharge machine. Sensors on the machines send signals to the PREMAS cloud, where they are analysed, and where green/amber/red alerts are generated for a user dashboard.
Stefan Markus of Spraying Systems Europe spoke about optimised quench cool solutions for cement. Sprays are typically used for SNCR and for gas conditioning. The correct nozzles must be chosen for each application, allowing a high turndown ratio, producing droplets of the most effective size, and being able to cope with the quality of water that is available. In gas cooling towers, the droplet size must be small enough that the water evaporates entirely before the droplet arrives at the bottom of the GC tower, thus avoiding a wet bottom. Computational Fluid Dynamics has been used to optimise the design of the nozzles and of the spray lances, and also to visualise the gas flow in diffuser vessels: guide vanes and perforated plates may be used to optimise the gas flow and to avoid droplet contact with the vessel walls, and to avoid regions of back-flow in the tower.
Adlan Omer of aixprocess next suggested that pure AI is not the solution for mill optimisation. His company partners with DALOG and with Kingsblue for condition monitoring and digital asset management. Adlan reminded the audience that a VRM is a very complicated machine, with a great deal of internal recirculation. Even multiple sensors will struggle to give a full picture of what is happening inside the mill. He suggested that a more sensible approach is to produce a fast process model, based on physics, which can be used as a feed for an adaptive neural-network-based AI analysis, in a hybrid modelling approach. He concluded that AI is not sufficient for cement mill optimisation because it lacks the ability to accurately model the complex relationships between inputs and outputs.
A veritable ‘tag-team’ of speakers, Heiko Bach and Tobias Keller of Schmersal, next spoke about safety approaches and devices around bulk material conveyor systems. Conveyor systems have many associated hazards, including crushing, shearing, trapping, drawing-in, electrical, thermal, and fire and explosion hazards. Retrofitting safety features can improve system availability, put the equipment into conformity with current safety guidelines and can extend equipment lifetimes and reduce overall investment costs. Optical scanning devices can be used to detect belt damage, further improving conveyor belt safety.
Frank Lichomski of IKN stated that although many people know IKN for its coolers, not so many people know that it can supply complete cement plants. Of course the IKN Pendulum cooler is widely used in the cement industry, as is the KIDS clinker inlet distribution system. Following a partnership with PSP from the Czech Republic, starting in 2013, the company brought in-house all pyroprocess design and engineering, including kiln, preheater and calciner designs. Frank gave details of IKN’s involvement at Heidelberg Materials’ Burglengenfeld renewal project. The plant wanted to use up to and beyond 85% AF, maintain strict compliance with future emissions limits, to reuse the existing bag filters, to limit the height of the two-string preheater and to achieve the shortest possible shutdown time - less than 81 days. IKN completed the project as an EPC contractor. The cooler used the latest technology, using two dynamic linear electrical drives, rather than more complicated hydraulic systems. The calciner features two ‘fire bed combustors’ for the use of coarse AF, which essentially are used as a sorting system, whereby light materials are transferred directly into the pyroprocess, but larger materials are retained until they have dried and can be combusted more easily. Frank also mentioned IKN’s project at Märker Cement in Harburg, Germany, which involved construction of a new 3000t/day pyroprocess systems, also including a revised and improved fire bed combustor. The project took place over the course of the Coronacrisis, with up to 170 workers on the site from 19 countries, but despite this the project was smoothly completed.
Bernhard Reindl, plant manager of the Heidelberg Materials’ Burglengenfeld plant, gave the final keynote at the conference, of an introduction to the plant that around 45 delegates would successfully go on to visit the next day. Bernhard pointed out that the plant has more than 100 years of history, having been established in 1912, subsequently being sold to Heidelberger Zement in 1924. A new 2000t/day preheater kiln was built at the plant in 1968, with another being built in 1974. In 1988 the plant started to burn alternative fuels, rising to around 65% with the two kilns. In 2018 the plant was modernised with a new kiln line. In 2022 the plant produced 1.2Mt of clinker and sold 1.4Mt of cement. The plant is close to many industrial sites and cities, such as Munich, Nuremberg, Regensburg and Ingolstadt. The plant benefits from low alkali raw materials, which are fed to a semi-mobile crusher in the quarry, before being conveyed to the raw material stockpiles. Clay and secondary raw materials, paper ash, alumina and flyash, are used to optimise raw meal composition. In total, around 2-2.5Mt of raw materials are extracted from the quarry each year. A blast hole driller is equipped with a dust sampler to give an indication of pile composition, while a cross-belt analyser is used for further quality control of material coming from the quarry. The goal of the measures is to reduce the standard deviation of the LSF of the kiln feed to below 1, in order to reduce chemical variation in the pyroline. The new line was installed in order to reduce emissions - without using an SCR system. Two new Gebr. Pfeiffer VRMs were installed, with a throughput of 200t/hour each, grinding raw meal and limestone filler. The 4000t/day 5-stage double string pyroline was designed by IKN, the new main filter was from Scheuch, the cooler was from IKN, and the new kiln Bogiflex drive was supplied by CMD. The plant runs at above the nominal capacity of the line, at an AF rate of above 80%, using fluff and RDF at the calciner, fluff and sewage sludge at the main burner and using a Turbu-Flex main burner from FCT. There is a chlorine bypass rate of up to 8%, redirecting gas to the clinker cooler. A STEAG-supplied SNCR system is used, to reduce NOx and mercury. Coarse and low-CV RDF is delivered by a fully-automated truck unloading and storage hall, with a capacity of 2000m3. Three ball mills and one roller press are in operation for clinker grinding, and one roller press in combined mode. Cement fineness is increasing as the clinker factor is reduced, so a new mixing plant will soon be installed at the plant.
Conclusions
Delegates filled in a questionnaire at the end of the conference, where they praised the organisation, atmosphere, excellent networking opportunities and interesting presentations at the event. Delegates voted for their favourite presentations, with Bernhard Reindl from Heidelberg Materials in third place, Dirk Schmidt from KIMA Process Control in second and Matthias Mersmann from KHD in first place. Delegates were overwhelmingly satisfied with the event’s Covid precautions (consisting of a simple test on arrival) and no Covid cases were recorded. Such was the success of the event that 96% of delegates voted for the event to be repeated in the future, with date and location yet to be decided.
What the delegates said:
• Perfect
• Looking forward to the next conference
• Thanks for exceptional quality hosting, very professional and great time keeping
• Thanks a lot! Really good moderation!
• Well done!
• Good job! Thanks for being part of this conference.
• Thank you and keep up the good mood
• All good
• Congrats once again for such a dynamic organisation
• Please go on with conferences like this!
