Cemcor completes upgrade work

Cemcor has completed the upgrade work on its Cookstown plant in Northern Ireland, UK. Following the company's acquisition of the plant, it committed GBP6m (US$7.54m/EUR6.98m) to replace the electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) with a state-of-the-art bag filter at the plant.

Within 14 months from final design agreement in March 2022, the new bag filter was commissioned and operational by May 2023. This investment project is centred around the abatement filter, with the filter separated into four quadrants with 22 rows per quadrant, 14 bags per row and a total of 1232 bags. Within the new filtration set-up, there is a system that detects and locates damaged bags. This system will isolate the cleaning operations to a specific row and, if the damage is minor, reseal with process dust. If the bag is severely damaged, the bag filter can isolate the entire section and maintenance can be carried out remotely. 

Cemcor has also installed a dust particulate conveying system at the Cookstown plant, transporting captured dust to a silo via a new batch weighing feeder where it will be recycled through the cement manufacturing process, so no material goes to waste.

A new reaction tower controls emissions of SO₂. Process gases are now directed from the kiln system through the filter prior to clean gases being released via the stack due to the instalment of a new 750KW main process fan.

Cookstown Cement acquired Lafarge Ireland in 2022, and rebranded to Cemcor following investment from the new local ownership.