CEE Jul-Sep-2012

'. Energy Recovery &Ecofriendly Disposal of Plastic Waste by Co-processing in Cement Kiln by B.N. Mohapatra, Sunil Kumar Vyas, Anand K Rai & Chander Shekhar Ultra Tech Cement Limited (Aditya Birla Group) More than 20 years ago, across the world cement industries utilization of wastes as alternative fuels in cement kiln started and trend is continuously increasing and gaining importance. The alternative fuel movement in India is in its toddler age. At a formal level some cement industries have started to utilize the wastes in cement manufacturing process as alternate fuels and raw materials to reinforce its competitiveness and contributing to solutions of waste problems by valorisation of the waste beneficiating environment. Developed countries are using low waste or waste free technologies as well as keep searching for waste treatment methods that would be friendly to the environment and helpful in recovering energy from waste. The energy intensiveness of cement production processes and increasing fuel prices, combined with fuel deficit, forced the cement industries to search for technologies based on waste derived alternate fuels. Coal and pet coke are the primary fuels for the cement industries. Alternative fuels contribute towards lowering the emission of green house gases by replacing the use of fossil fuels with materials that would otherwise have to be incinerated with corresponding emissions and final residue. Incineration of any waste in dedicated incinerator results in non-utilization of energy from this valuable waste rather it requires additional energy for incineration and increments the Green House Gas Emissions. The world over, cement industry has achieved a fuel substitution between 15-50% of total fuel requirement in cement manufacturing by alternate fuels. Cement kilns are used as incinerators for wastes, including hazardous wastes, municipal solid wastes and agro waste all over the world. CEMBUREAU reported in 2004 that 6. 1 million tones of waste were valorized in cement rotary kiln out of which about 1 million tones was hazardous substances. By 2004 the rate of consumption of alternate fuel has gone up from 3 to 17 percent that is equivalent to saving of about 4 million tones of coal. The main benefits in usi ng solids waste in cement kilns include energy recovery, conservation of non-renewable fuels, reduction in cement production cost and the use of already existing facility (Conesa et. al.) 5. In UK more than 20 cement factories are using tyre as an alternative fuels to produce 13 million tones of cement with permanent authorization from the Environment Agency. While in Netherlands and Germany there are several cement factories which are running on alternative fuels (Asthana et al.)1. According to European Cement Association (Mokrzycki et al.)2 figures for the proportion of alternative fuels used in cement kilns between 1990 and 1998 in particular countries were as follows: Belgium- 18%, France- 52%, Italy - 4.1 %, Portugal - 1.3%, Spain - 1%, Sweden - 2%, Switzerland - 25%, Czech Republic - 9.7%, Great Britain - 20%, Germany - 15%, Poland- 14%. Vikram Cement Works (VCW), a unit of UltraTech Cement Ltd ., is flagship unit of Cement Business of Aditya Birla Group Company was established in the year 1985. The unit is located at village Khor of Neemuch district in 'Malwa' region of western Madhya Pradesh, bordering Rajasthan. The unit started with a single manufacturing line of 1500 TPD capacity in the year 1985. The journey of excellence with technological up gradation such as retrofitting of coolers, continual improvements & optimization projects resulted in three units (Line-1, II & Ill) with ultimate capacity of 4.0 MTPA cement production. The unit is producing Gray Cement & Clinker. The integrated unit (captive limestone mines, cement plant, captive thermal power plant and township) sprawled over an area of over 1000 hectares stands tall , as a symbol of 'Sustainable Industrial Development'. To ensure self sustenance on power and also to reduce cost of cement manufacturing, in the year 2008-09 unit had installed 46 MW (2X23 MW) captive thermal power plants. Today, unit is acknowledged as one of the most efficient, vibrant, productive, profitable, technologically updated and state-of-the-art unit of Aditya Birla Group's UltraTech cement business by making commendable efforts towards energy conservation & environmental protection. 6