Cement, Energy and Environment

Gypsum, as a retarder for se ng, is essen al for any type of Portland cement produc on The reserves of natural, mineral Gypsum in India are deple ng very fast and usage of by-product Gypsum has its own limita ons, necessita ng for the imports of Gypsum by the industry. Y.V.Satyamurthy, Consultant from cement industry takes a close look at the emerging op on of sourcing Synthe c Gypsum from upcoming Flue Gas Desulfuriza on (FGD) units of Thermal Power Plants. Present Scenario Indian cement industry is mostly impor ng gypsum to meet part of the demand due to limita ons on availability and quality of indigenous resources in India. As per the MOEF no fica on of 7.12.2015, all the thermal plants have to install Flue Gas De- sulfuriza on (FGD) systems for SOx emission before year 2020. Power plants have already been working on FGD projects based on Wet FGD Technology, u lising Limestone (LS) as raw material. With present Coal based Installed Thermal power genera on capacity of about 1,90,000 MW in the country, the poten al for FGD product (Synthe c gypsum) genera on is es mated to be about 23 million tons per annum by 2022. Power plants foresee a major disposal problem of SG generated and are looking at Gypsum based industries such as Cement & Wall board as major customers for SG. In developed countries like US, the Synthe c gypsum from power plants has more or less replaced the gypsum demand by Cement& Wall board Industry. This paper discusses about the Quality & Quan ty of Limestone requirements for FGDs with expected quality of SG generated from power plants. As this development is a Win-Win situa on for Power and Cement industry, various possibili es of collabora on between these two major industries are discussed in this ar cle. Ministry of Environment & Forests (MOEF) vide their th no fica on dated 7 Dec., 2015 has prescribed limits for par culate and gaseous emissions from all the Thermal Power plants in India. As per the no fica ons the SO emissions X are to be brought down to level 3 of less than 600 mg/NM for plants (installed before 2016) and all the plants have to comply with this limit within 2 years from the date of no fica on. As on date, the coal based thermal power genera on capacity in India is about 1.96 Lakh MW and it is projected by Ministry of Power (MOP), following implementa on schedule of FGDs by Thermal Power Plants. Few of the Thermal Power Plants have already ini ated projects for USE OF SYNTHETIC GYPSUM IN CEMENT INDUSTRY 48 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2018-22 To be complied by 2022 or plants to be phased out No. of Units 1 8 55 172 179 414 236 Gen. Capacity, MW 1,61,522 35,145 Y V Satyamurthy, Consultant for Cement & Mineral Industries