Co-processing: A clean indea for the Indian cement sector?
One fine day in 2007, three trucks from Hindustan Unilever, laden with shampoos, powders, creams and assortments for the body beautiful, arrived at the gates of ACCs Kymore cement plant, near Jabalpur. The plant head was foxed and wondered why shampoos had come to him. He quickly configured it perhaps had something to do with the companys employee welfare initiatives. But then, how was he to distribute the huge quantities; and how much for each worker? He was awestruck by the sudden bounty.
He called up headquarters, only to be told that the stuff all past their expiry date was to be burned in the kilns of the cement plant to generate energy. It was then a small trial. And the technical staff had no inkling about the immense potential of waste to replace coal in cement kilns.
Since then, HUL has hauled 13,700 tonnes of its waste products to ACCs Kymore plant for co-processing, a term commonplace in the cement sector across the globe and now in India too. HULs trade rejects, till date, have replaced 0.3% of the total heat requirement at ACCs Kymore plant, says Pradeep Banerjee, executive director, supply chain, HUL, who is planning to send out more waste, especially of the hazardous variety, from its units.
The project and ACC-HUL partnership are flowering. It is in keeping with the tenets of industrial ecology, where one industrys waste becomes anothers raw material. Co-processing is basically the use of waste materials in industrial processes as alternative fuels and raw materials (AFR) to recover energy and material value from them. Its of critical import to the cement sector because energy costs account for 40% of its cost of production, which involves heating and blending of raw meal at temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees Celsius.
ACC, of Switzerlands Holcim Group, with 16 plants and an installed capacity ! of 26 mi llion tonnes of cement, has acquired a degree of expertise in co-processing even hazardous waste like no other Indian company. It has set up an AFR division to oversee this activity.
The company has invested Rs 8 crore in four laboratories for AFR testing. It is also endeavouring to build a countrywide co-processing ecosystem by working with various stakeholders industry waste-generators, NGOs, municipal bodies, and also the government. We look at this activity from two perspectives: sorting out issues around waste disposal, which is a menace to society, especially to a growing economy like ours, says Ulhas Parlikar, director-AFR business, ACC. And of course, from the value addition and cost benefits that accrue.
In 2009, the AFR push saved Rs 41 crore for ACC, up from Rs 22.8 crore in 2008. Last year, ACC gorged 22,000 tonnes of waste paint sludge, refinery sludge, spent alumina, plastics and old tyres, among others in its kilns as alternative fuel. This excludes fly ash and slag, which account for 6-7 million tonnes and are known as mineral components in cement parlance.
The Indian cement sector, led by ACC, is beginning to scratch the surface of the potential of alternative fuels. The thermal substitution rate at ACC the amount of energy used from alternative fuels as a percentage of the total energy used from coal and other sources is 0.59%. The substitution at UltraTech, an Aditya Birla Group company, is 0.47%, through the use of biomass fuels. For cement makers in the US, the figure is around 25%. Europe has a better record, with Switzerland achieving 47% thermal-energy substitution, Norway 45% and Germany 42%.
He called up headquarters, only to be told that the stuff all past their expiry date was to be burned in the kilns of the cement plant to generate energy. It was then a small trial. And the technical staff had no inkling about the immense potential of waste to replace coal in cement kilns.
Since then, HUL has hauled 13,700 tonnes of its waste products to ACCs Kymore plant for co-processing, a term commonplace in the cement sector across the globe and now in India too. HULs trade rejects, till date, have replaced 0.3% of the total heat requirement at ACCs Kymore plant, says Pradeep Banerjee, executive director, supply chain, HUL, who is planning to send out more waste, especially of the hazardous variety, from its units.
The project and ACC-HUL partnership are flowering. It is in keeping with the tenets of industrial ecology, where one industrys waste becomes anothers raw material. Co-processing is basically the use of waste materials in industrial processes as alternative fuels and raw materials (AFR) to recover energy and material value from them. Its of critical import to the cement sector because energy costs account for 40% of its cost of production, which involves heating and blending of raw meal at temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees Celsius.
ACC, of Switzerlands Holcim Group, with 16 plants and an installed capacity ! of 26 mi llion tonnes of cement, has acquired a degree of expertise in co-processing even hazardous waste like no other Indian company. It has set up an AFR division to oversee this activity.
The company has invested Rs 8 crore in four laboratories for AFR testing. It is also endeavouring to build a countrywide co-processing ecosystem by working with various stakeholders industry waste-generators, NGOs, municipal bodies, and also the government. We look at this activity from two perspectives: sorting out issues around waste disposal, which is a menace to society, especially to a growing economy like ours, says Ulhas Parlikar, director-AFR business, ACC. And of course, from the value addition and cost benefits that accrue.
In 2009, the AFR push saved Rs 41 crore for ACC, up from Rs 22.8 crore in 2008. Last year, ACC gorged 22,000 tonnes of waste paint sludge, refinery sludge, spent alumina, plastics and old tyres, among others in its kilns as alternative fuel. This excludes fly ash and slag, which account for 6-7 million tonnes and are known as mineral components in cement parlance.
The Indian cement sector, led by ACC, is beginning to scratch the surface of the potential of alternative fuels. The thermal substitution rate at ACC the amount of energy used from alternative fuels as a percentage of the total energy used from coal and other sources is 0.59%. The substitution at UltraTech, an Aditya Birla Group company, is 0.47%, through the use of biomass fuels. For cement makers in the US, the figure is around 25%. Europe has a better record, with Switzerland achieving 47% thermal-energy substitution, Norway 45% and Germany 42%.
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