PETCOKE AS FUEL FOR
CEMENT PRODUCTION: BENEFITS & CHALLENGES
Cement Business and
Industry (CBI), India and South Asia,
October 9-10, 2013,
Mumbai, India
The
GMI Global, LLC, organized a two day conference, Cement Business and Industry
(CBI), India and South Asia, at Mumbai, on 9-10 October 2013. The venue was
Hilton International Airport Hotel. Dr J D Bapat gave a presentation on “Petcoke
as Fuel for Cement production: Benefits and Challenges”. Good number of Indian and
international organisations were represented in the Conference, some of which
are mentioned below: Lafarge
India
CW
Group
Afghan
Ministry of Mines
Magnesita
Claudius
Peters Projects GmbH
Ultratech
Cement
RNCOS
Business Consultancy
Ambit
Capital
National
council for Cement and Building Materials
HGH
Systems
Task
force for Business and Stability Operations, US Department of Defense
Geicycle
Business, ACC
PwC
India
Shree
Cement
RNB
Cement
DPTS
Enterprises
Reliance
Cement
World
Business Council for Sustainable Development
Zuari
cement
Prism
Cement
Tata
Strategic Management GroupThe
Indian Cement Industry today prefers petcoke as an alternate fuel for cement
manufacturing for various reasons. The important among them are as follows: (a) High calorific value > 8,000 kcal/kg
(3500-4500 kcal/kg conventional), low
ash content and low volatile matter (but
high sulphur content, up to 7%)
(b)
Resource conservation thru production
of higher grade cement or utilisation of marginal and low grade raw materials
(c) Saving in transport cost due to lesser fuel load
(d)
Saving in the initial cost (fuel cost
constitutes about 48% of the cost of cement production)However the burning of petcoke also throws some challenges,
like: (a) Low
hard groove index: difficult to
grind
(b) Low
volatile matter: difficult
to burn
(c)
High sulphur: Condensation of sulpahtes and chlorides in preheater
section results in jamming of process flows, termed as volatile cycles
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