Great Gains With Grinding Aids

The use of grinding aids (GAs) to improve mill productivity is a well-established practice in the cement industry. The growing demand for concrete consumption, driven by increasing construction activities in developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, has led to higher cement production globally. The production of clinker is an energy-intensive process with significant carbon emissions. A key approach to control these impacts is reducing clinker production. Moreover, it is always encouraged to reduce the usage of clinker for cement production by utilising industrial byproducts.

It estimated in a roadmap that by 2050, the average clinker factor will be reduced to 0.60 globally. GAs play a crucial role in achieving this by enhancing grinding efficiency and optimising energy usage required for the production of cement. GAs and performance enhancers are usually added during the cement grinding process to improve the quality of the finished cement.

Applications of grinding aids

The primary objective of using ball mills to grind clinker and gypsum was size reduction. Thus, it is also used for grinding coal. In addition, the output product gets homogeneously mixed during grinding operation. Earlier, only ball mills were primarily used for grinding cement. However, the grinding media and walls of ball mills often became coated with fine ground cement, reducing productivity and grindability. The addition of GAs avoids these coatings and improves both grindability and productivity.

Developments in milling technology largely replaced the conventional ball mills with i) vertical roller mills or ii) a combination of a ball mill and a roller press. However, the choice of grinding method depends on factors such as feed size, desired output, hardness of input materials, operating conditions, and economic circumstances. The productivity enhancement was more in vertical roller mills (VRMs) as compared to ball mills. Thus, VRMs are currently favoured over ball mills for their efficiency and robustness.

Despite differences in the energy consumption of ball mills and vertical roller mills, the use of GAs remains critical across all grinding methods. GAs provide several benefits, as listed below:

• Ease the grinding process.
• Reduce the energy consumption.
• Enhance the production capacity in bulk units.
• Ensures desired quality consistently in the finished product.

In recent years, the role of GAs has expanded beyond improving productivity and achieving energy efficiency. Out of which, reducing clinker production is the utmost priority, with an ultimate aim of achieving carbon neutrality or even becoming carbon negative. Governments and other regulatory bodies may soon compel cement producers to use the GAs for cement production to meet these sustainability targets.

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