Aiding Decarbonisation

The Indian cement and construction sectors continue to grow faster than most global markets. This is putting unprecedented pressure on the industry players to keep delivering better, finer, and higher strength cements.

Cement manufacturing is one of the largest sources of industrial pollution and green-house gases (GHG). Typically, every ton of cement produced results in 0.5 – 1 t of CO₂ emissions, depending on the grade, the input materials, the state of the plant and machinery, and the quality of the cement.

With the increasing production of higher compressive strengths and finer cements, the carbon footprint, as well as other environmental concerns, continues to grow for both the industry and the world at large.

Grinding aids and other bespoke chemical additives present a more sustainable way of delivering high-strength and high-quality cements, with a significantly lower carbon footprint.

This article gives a snapshot of some of the work conducted at the UNISOL-STAREX Research Centre in India, demonstrating the impact of chemical additives in delivering higher performance cements, with reduced clinker factors.

Reducing the clinker factor

UNISOL focuses on delivering ‘solutions’ rather than ‘products’. Every cement plant is a unique case, when it comes to its requirement for grinding aids and/or chemical additives.

The specific needs of each plant are understood before the right grinding aid blend is proposed, tested, and deployed. This can be achieved comprehensively by covering aspects such as:

• Strategic and business needs.
• Mineralogy, chemical, and physical properties of input materials such as clinker, gypsum, fly ash, slag, etc.
• Baseline quality parameters such as compressive strengths, setting times, PSD, Blaines and residues.
• Process parameters and underlying process equipment, etc.

Subsequently, an initial hypothesis is developed and multi-component blends (grinding aid formulations) are prepared. Extensive trials and iterations are undertaken for assessing the impact of these formulations.

The best formulations are tested at plant scale and validated for their impact on a full scale production environment. Optimisation and fine-tuning efforts are undertaken to ensure maximum value delivery at plant scale.

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Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/10022023/aiding-decarbonisation/