Global Cement's image gallery for the 56th IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference 2014
The IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference is the largest annual cement industry conference in the world and the event this year was one of the largest ever, with over 150 exhibitors and three full days of tutorials and presentations. Notably, one of the popular tutorials offered was on 'How to convert from coal to natural gas,' reflecting the current very low price of gas in the US due to the fracking boom. Tutorials on environmental issues and regulations were also popular, and shed light on the legislative onslaught being directed towards the industry in the US, despite the weak economic conditions of the last few years.
Ted Richardson, the national chair of the PCA, opened the conference and pointed out the hard work of the volunteers and committees that put the conference together. Derek Nicholls of Essroc - the local organising chairman - welcomed delegates from around the world, while Jeff Nagel the IEEE-IAS CIC vice chair introduced the technical programme.
Ed Sullivan, chief economist at the US Portland Cement Association, told delegates that he was, despite his in-built conservatism, 'optimistic' and he forecast strong and sustainable growth at above 8% for the coming years, and possibly at up to 11% in 2016. By 2018, he suggested that capacity utilisation in the US will be at around 92%, with imports progressively being sucked into the market. Ed suggested that consumer sentiment is turning, and since two in every three dollars spent in the US is spent by consumers and personal debt is at a 30 year low, the overall economy is destined to lift as consumers start to spend again. State budgets are swinging back into surplus, freeing-up cash for infrastructure spending. He suggested that the effect of the Ukraine situation on US and world economic trends will be 'relatively minor.' Ed set great store in 'pent-up demand,' not just for housing units, but also for highway spending and for state and local infrastructure. He underlined the fact that another 65 million people will be added to the US population by 2035, with an additional 50 million drivers on the roads. He suggested that US cement consumption will top 170Mt by 2035. By around 2022, the import capacity of the market will be fully utilised and US producers will need to decide, do they build new capacity or not? In questioning, Ed admitted that his forecasts did not take into account any future recessions.
Mark Johnson, director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office of the US department of Energy, next spoke on advanced manufacturing innovation. Mark pointed out that the US will retain its high standard of living through the use of high technology. However, around 20 years ago the US started to import more advanced technology than it exported. The US currently has a competitive advantage due to its early adoption of horizontal drilling technologies to liberate shale gas and to reduce its energy prices. He made a passionate plea for industry to come together in consortia to fix their technological problems. Mark listed a number of technologies that are in the process of being developed, including in energy efficiency and advanced materials and electronics, and suggested that these may come to change the world.
After the introductory keynote presentations, the core presentations of the conference began, starting with a technical session on drives and related products. The fact that speakers were allowed to acknowledge the company that they worked for (at least in their introductory slide) was appreciated, since it allowed listeners to gauge their background more accurately than if their affiliation had been forced to be anonymous.
In the session, Bill Finley of Siemens started by pointing out that drives and motors need to be thought of as a combined system in order to optimise their performance and to reduce their total cost of ownership. Authors from EDG Consulting Engineers next spoke about the design of an overland conveyor at a coal export terminal in South America and the lessons learned. Melissa Dale of FLSmidth then delved into the possibility of converting direct-drive low-speed motors to higher-speed V-belt-driven drives to improve their energy efficiency. Motor design standards were upgraded after the energy crunch in the 1970s and have been progressively tightened ever since. Modern retrofitted conversions have shown reductions in power usage up to 36%, resulting in power cost savings return on investment of less than a year. Melissa stated that the cost of retrofitting may be lower than the cost of a replacement motor, and that such projects may qualify for substantial grants from a variety of institutions. Mark Fanslow pointed out that the higher efficiency of synchronous motors at low speed and with VFD provide a directly coupled solution, with a controlled power factor and high efficiency.
At lunchtime on both days of the conference, the sessions split, giving the delegates the unenviable task of deciding which sessions or presentations to attend, knowing that half of them would have to be missed. A swift survey of highlights from the programme might include a new 3000t/d cement line in Italy by the Italcementi Group; Pyro and raw mill modifications at Capitol Aggregates ("Spend time on planning, expect the unexpected, some surprises are good"); A processed engineered fuel presentation by Edward Morton ("PEF differs from conventional solid alternative fuels in that production begins with the best material possible as the main feedstock and then selected industrial and commercial by-products of known and consistent composition are added to improve the overall mix and thus achieve the desired quality specifications"); John and Charles Kline's paper on the future of CO2; An introduction to the 'Step Combustor' for coarse alternative fuels from TKIS; And pointers towards kiln stability ("alignment is crucial") by John Ross.
Second day
On the second day of the conference PCA chairman Cary Cohrs of American Cement opened the day, before the morning session on safety, energy and regulations.
Tom Harman of the PCA gave an update of regulations affecting cement producers, covering mercury, HCl, THC and pm (fine dust). Crystalline silica is set to become more tightly regulated, based on an 8-hour weighted average of 50micrograms per cubic metre. The PCA's preferred method to control exposure is for respiratory protection, record keeping and medical surveillance.
Bruce Blaire next introduced delegates to EPDs - environmental product declarations - the 'cradle to gate' analysis that totals all environmental impacts of production. A number of groups are pushing EPDs, including LEED, the US Green Building Council, Architecture 2030 (pushing for net zero buildings by 2030), the International Green Construction Code and others. The value of 'green' construction is forecast to grow to around $145bn by 2015. Specifiers including state highway departments are starting to insist on EPDs during tendering. Product Category Rules are used to create EPDs and are created by technical working groups from within the industry. Critically, EPDs do not allow comparison between different building projects, only for their component parts. PCRs are being developed for concrete, slag cement, OPC and fly ash.
Steve Minshall of Ash Grove then spoke about the globally harmonised system (GHS) for classification and labelling of chemicals, including cements. Essentially, Steve pointed out that the GHS is a very involved process, involving hazard identification, hazard mitigation measures that must be taken, storage and disposal instructions, and medical responses to exposure. He pointed out that if your cement product has more than 0.1% crystalline silica, then the product will be obliged to show a symbol indicating that it can be potentially carcinogenic. Lead, zinc and other minor metals in cement may become more of an issue in due course.
Munger Ghosh, plant director of the Essroc Martinsburg cement plant, then gave an introduction to the plant, which was the field trip location for the conference and which was the subject of an extended article in the April issue of Global Cement Magazine.
Once again, in the afternoon the programme split in two. Global Cement chose to attend the very interesting panel discussion on high efficiency SO2 removal systems. Lars Hansen of Solios Environmental spoke about the use of a dry process Venturi-based partially-hydrated lime reactor based scrubber for SO2. Steve Miller from FLS spoke about the semi-dry gas suspension absorber (GSA), where lime and water are injected into the reactor vessel separately and where they are mixed with the polluted gas stream in the reactor vessel. Depending on the pollutants present and scrubbed (which may include HCl and mercury), the by-product material can be reintroduced into the process, or may have to be 'wasted.' Steve Meyer from DuPont spoke on SO2 removal using a wet scrubber froth system. Dirty gas is reacted with a spray of water incorporating limestone or CKD, in a froth zone, with the reacted material consisting of gypsum - after an oxidation step - being removed from the water in a separate vessel. Five such wet scrubbers have been installed in the cement industry, with up to 98% removal of SO2, and with the synthetic gypsum produced capable of being recycled into the cement as a set retardant.
Peter Sopher of Behrent Engineering Company spoke about the use of highly efficient 3D CAD design technology for developing engineering drawings for various capital design cement plant projects. Peter emphasised the fact that the 3D model approach means that a variety of contractors in remote sites can have an input into the design process, with fast evolution of process design saving money and leading to design improvements. Laser scanning of the existing plant can be used for high accuracy data-gathering.
Jennifer Anderson and co-authors from PANalytical gave the final presentation in the session and the conference, on the state-of-the-art in XRD. Jennifer pointed out that alternative fuels, alternative raw materials and new cement formulations require even more sophisticated monitoring of not only composition but also mineralogy. Repeatability, reproducibility and accuracy were all shown to be high with Rietveld techniques, but less so for 'problematic' materials such as slag and fly ash. Jennifer concluded with the suggestion that cluster analysis can be used to analyse and visualise very large amounts of data provided by XRD analysis.